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Comment by supriyo-biswas | Hacker News Reader

One point I do not see addressed in the article is how the location is collected.

It'd be a little bit of a stretch to call IP geolocation as collecting location data as it is usually no more accurate than just procuring the geolocation yourself, so there's no need to get it from a broker. However, on an Android for example, both ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION and ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION require permission dialogs, so how does it exactly work?

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At least some, if not the majority, is likely derived from the IP address used in the ad bidding process.

> Franaszek also says that “a significant amount of this geolocation dataset appears to be inferred by IP address to geolocation lookups, meaning the vendor or their source is deriving the user's geolocation by checking their IP address rather than by using GNSS [Global Navigation Satellite System]/GPS data. That would suggest that the data is not being sourced entirely from a location data SDK.”

It's a stretch to call out a game for tracking every IP use use and trying to location track you using that? A game should not be trying to track my location at all, not get a pass because technically it's not very accurate.

These ad spaces are using the GMS services which is a default system app on every Google Android this app has virtually all access on your device including position and such. https://developers.google.com/android/reference/com/google/a...

Does this suggest permissions are a facade?

I think it means permissions work if the app owner is not participating in the ad-buy market, but if they are, then certain permissions (any covering data provided to bidders) are skirted by google.

And by that, who is not participating in the ad-buy market. It's nearly impossible to use the internet today without being forced into it.

Tinder is location based, so probably through that.

Not sure about other apps.

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