Lazy journalism. In other words, their code might not cover all cases.
Location history is opt in and has to be turned on. I like keeping history of where I am visiting but people can keep it off.
Location history is opt in and has to be turned on. I like keeping history of where I am visiting but people can keep it off.
"Google privacy setting tested and doesn't work" seems like a pretty important headline to me.
[1] Location History section of https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/protecting-pe...
> Some of the places people visit — including medical facilities like counseling centers, domestic violence shelters, abortion clinics, fertility centers, addiction treatment facilities, weight loss clinics, cosmetic surgery clinics, and others — can be particularly personal. Today, we’re announcing that if our systems identify that someone has visited one of these places, we will delete these entries from Location History soon after they visit. This change will take effect in the coming weeks.
As such, if you don't opt into having that history kept (which it doesn't appear you can), you should be able to expect it will be deleted. That being said, it does seem to pretty clearly indicate that those locations _will_ be tracked; just that said information will be removed later.
Everyone citing Google's statement is ignoring that conditional clause.
If they identify the person as going to the Starbucks next door, they won't delete the entry. If they identify the person as going near an abortion clinic but not _to_ the abortion clinic, they won't delete the entry.
Because it's not there. When users enable this feature it says nothing about this.
This isn't a contrived example. This is one of the examples the author complained about. "One time, it labeled my visit to a Planned Parenthood clinic as the coffee shop next door, and kept the record." Google isn't a mind reader yet.
Lazy coding.
You make it sound like one has to go out of their way to enable it.
Pretty sure it’s one of several steps you click through when you sign up for a Google account. And so most people will probably accept it.
Add to that what the article is actually about. Google promised to remove visits to sensitive locations, but the visits were not removed.
So google ASKS you to turn on location data during setup. It’s the consumer’s decision to turn it on and reap the _$benefits_ or keep it off and lose out on _$benefits_. Should there be a secondary and tertiary prompt warning of the exact data collected? Will users just mindlessly click through those too?
The path of least resistance is the path of maximal data suck.
Define those locations