Your location history | Hacker News Reader

Your location history

maps.google.com

284 pointsznowi157 comments

Perchance do they make iPhones in Dongguan, Guangdong, China?

Evidently I was there on November 15, which (thankfully) seems to coincide with the order date for my new phone. At least I'd prefer that somebody on the testing line turned it on for long enough for it to store the location, rather the alternative of somebody having logged into my Google account from there.

Regardless, I'm going to disagree with pretty much everybody here and say that this is really cool. Except for the part where the little dot stays inside my house for entire 5-day stretches. Please tell me I just left my phone on the charger, and not that I didn't actually open my front door for an entire week!

Foxconn's newest manufacturing / assembly plant is in Dongguan and was, supposedly, built mostly to handle Apple's devices

This is interesting. Why would a location data point created during testing show up in your location history? You should be logged in for google to make it a data point on your account.

Simple guess is there's software outside of your google account that tracks the location. Then, once you're google account is assigned to that phone, the google account is mapped to that software and therefore assigned to all of that phone's location history.

About a year ago, Google started having new Nexus devices from the Google Play ship pre-configured to your Google Account before they leave the factory. (It makes the box-opening more magical -- turn it on and GMail works, as opposed to turn it on and then have to type in your email address and password.) So if the new device was one of these, presumably someone or something in China turned it on and did some voodoo magic to pre-install your account on the device before it went into a box to be shipped to you.

I agree with what you said for Nexus or any other android devices. But OP was talking about iPhones. And that is why it seemed not very plausible.

I used to work for TomTom and they run a live-traffic analysis service to help them with taking current traffic into account with route planning.

They buy anonymized live location data from telcos for that, called probes, which go for about $1 per year.

Then a few years after Android started Google suddenly came out with a live traffic service with similar resolution for free.

I already had a pretty strong suspicion of what their cheap source of probes was :)

There was no need to suspect, the Maps team published a blog post about how they get traffic information: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/bright-side-of-sittin...

I turned mine off recently, not because I am convinced there is a method that guarantees 0% data leakage, but because it is a good idea to reduce the surface area of data that you provide voluntarily to anyone.

Anyhow, what is more amusing for me is when others, like me, turn all this off and tweet away with location turned on or check into various locations on FB/FSQ or comment on what they are doing or where there are at or who they are with at regular intervals.

You can't "turn off" the data you give to these services. It's foolish to believe you can.

Every time you type in an address, it gets logged along with your IP addr and any tracking cookie you may have. This happens regardless of whatever setting you've told the service to respect. It's in their financial interest to gather as much data about you as possible.

Turn off, as in, turned off location tracking in Google.

I do not believe it is possible to break out of the surveillance state by using technology, unless you want to go the RMS route, which I am not that keen on or even sure if it works 100%. I also consider this to be a problem that is social than technological. If society largely agrees to an invasive level of snooping as a valid trade-off for reasonable security, no amount of cyrpto or anonymization will keep you safe. Privacy is a social contract that is enforced using technology. If the contract is flawed, the technology, as always, will only serve to amplify that flaw.

Meanwhile, Google is only one of the players in the data harvesting world. Starting from the ISP that you are on, everyone captures and sells your data. The only saving grace with Google is that they at least admit to doing this and provide some degree of visibility into it. There are companies out there that the average person has little idea about. For example, some of them are shipped billing data of telcos that get mined and profiled on daily basis. And that is just one company.

Yep, and it's the only company that allows you to turn it off.

The surveillance state is already here, we have let it happen and it is unlikely to go away ever again. I think we should instead refocus the discussion. The question is not anymore how to prevent the surveillance state, but how to best live in a world like this.

That's an unproductive, defeatist argument. You could say that about any problem facing humanity today. It just amounts to an excuse to do nothing.

Let's instead start a discussion about shrinking the surveillance state, with the goal of one day overturning it. Even though the odds are against us. Because you gotta draw the line somewhere.

https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0/settings

Apparently Google does not use geo IP for this tracking. ( At least it did not show any location data for me, even we I briefly turned tracking on on my tablet.) However, what Google knows and what Google shows may two different things.

I love that I can sit in my car and with just a few swipes and types I can quickly bring up a navigation route from my current location to a new destination. That is why I let Google know about my whereabouts. It seems foolish of me to give all my location history to Google and subsequently to the NSA for this reason. I should probably find a service that lets me do this without giving up all that information.

I have enabled Google Now, just for fun, because I'm impressed by the technology behind that service. That seems even more foolish. I'm handing over my location history to NSA just to test out new, cool Google tech.

I am completely aware of the fact that any information I give up to the NSA or my country's equivalent, the FRA, can and will be used against me, perhaps not now or in ten yrs from now, but at some point in time, if this mass surveillance is not stopped (which seems very unlikely). I am currently not engaged in any political activities and I'm not at all terrified by what someone would be able to find out about me. I have a feeling though that I'm doing a great disservice to my future self.

I once had an awkward experience because of having Google Latitude enabled and shared with contacts. I was supposed to be at a wedding but I didn't go, then a friend caught me near the event. Since then I keep location, search history etc. turned off. I have learned that the underlying technology might be cool, but it is not essential.

For reasonably short distances (a few hundred km), OsmAnd does routing on the device. It's $8 to have access for the maps they generate (it's also possible to fuss with the maps and not pay...).

It uses OpenStreetMap data, the address search probably isn't as complete as Google.

> I should probably find a service that lets me do this without giving up all that information.

Just buy a standalone GPS device. Avoid the ones called "Live". TomTom ones with FM radio traffic receivers are really good.

It's somewhat scary but I also find it pretty interesting. I wish there was a simple way to plot all of my data for the entire year or even all of the data Google has. Between Google and various social networks I'm sure you could put together a pretty interesting map of someone's travels.

Logging in and going to: https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0/kml?startTime=13...

Gave me all my location history for this year.

It was a little more work than I thought it would be, but I was able to quickly download my location history in six month chunks and show those chunks on Goole Earth:

https://photos-1.dropbox.com/t/0/AAAg-MWGU24ypRXKKQKhdv0Hu4o...

This image is unlikely to be of much interest to anyone but me, though. But for me it's a fun reminder of where I've been, and a reminder that I haven't been to all that many places.

Link doesn't work

Lame, but thanks: https://www.dropbox.com/s/pec21x5ti9k6ge0/location-history.j...

You are surprisingly globe-trotty (I don't know who you are; but, you do seem to ping around a lot), and you seem to have an interest in either riding trains or driving long distances. Are you a consultant of some sort?

The straight line is probably a plane flight. As in, the phone was turned off as the departure location and back on at the destination.

Indeed. I was referring to the squiggly line in the center of the country that looked like he was going along a road of some sort

Only one of those trips was for work--the rest were trips to see friends and family, and traveling (and a few of those were visits due simply to spurious data--it shows me visiting Canada twice, but only the Quebec trip was real. The other was when my phone apparently decided it was in Banff).

I would have loved to take the train on most of those trips, but they don't allow dogs or go where I need to go.

And this is only since mid-2010. Had I had data from before then I could have shown some decidedly uninteresting maps.

The Sage app attempts to do this for you.

Used it on a regular basis, but since I owned multiple Android devices this tool became pretty useless. You can't filter on devices, so when I'm out with my phone leaving my tablet at home, the location history only displays a bunch of spikes of me traveling with tremendous speeds.

I don't sign in to Google Maps or other location-based services very often, and the accuracy of this report reflects that which is good to see.

I appreciate Google working to make this data public to the consumer so they know what they are providing and can turn on / off services as they see fit. If I had an Android device I would most likely be using Google Now a lot more and this data might be really useful.

Next, I'd like a listing of everyone that is being sold my data packaged anonymously, just so I can be aware.

That's a pretty silly idea. Google doesn't sell your data to anyone. It's their most valuable asset!

I'd like to tack on that it's pretty cool that you can also delete individual points and entire days of data.

I like this much better than what data my wireless service provider probably has on me. At least with this I know what Google has on me, and I have some control over it.

The data Google holds, across all of users, is an incredible wealth of knowledge.

This location data, connected to your other account information, provides the ability to see trends in where people are going - with accurate income estimates. I can only imagine how valuable this information would be to real estate investors.

And that's only a tiny piece of the pie. Google has so much knowledge now, that a lot of it probably goes to waste because they don't even have the capacity to take advantage of it all.

Google could utilize this to make some seriously sophisticated estimates on the revenue a company/store is doing. Therefore the stock market would be similar to shooting fish in a barrel. As I understand it, if it's legal/acceptable for hedge funds to use private satellite imagery I don't see how this would be any different.

They may not be able to use it all right know, but it's just a matter of time before they can.

Methinks the reactions in this thread alone, even from the people that like this, make it quite clear that there has been no explicit, informed consent prior to Google collecting this data.

It's not so much the technology that worries me. It's how Google thinks it's powerful enough to be above the law that is troubling. Especially because unlike in the Microsoft era of monopolistic arrogance, we're not talking about market regulations, but civil rights.

Looks like I turned off permission for recording my location history on June 9th. They've got plenty of data before then, but none after that. That was the day that Snowden's identity was made public. I guess I must have had a sudden onset of extra paranoia around then. In hindsight, I was right.

Well you can opt-out from Google but can't from your telco. They have been tracking you for over decades.

Mobile device = tracking device.

http://www.zeit.de/digital/datenschutz/2011-03/data-protecti...

Mobile cellphone = tracking device. Most mobile devices don't connect to any telco.

Maybe they don't connect to any telco, but most mobile devices are trackable. They send and receive data.

> They've got plenty of data before then, but none after that.

You mean: they're not showing you any data after that.

They are probably not explicitly lying about what information they retain. If they say they deleted it, well, it's probably at least inaccessible to production systems.

Sure. Other parties such as the NSA may well have a copy.

It's possible that Google is telling the truth. The FTC is paying close attention, especially after the settlements in the Buzz and Safari cookie incidents. Deceptive data collection and use practices--like lying about having location data--would certainly trigger FTC enforcement.

They do collect, they just don't show it to you.

"You have no location history" (cycled various points in time)

I assume this is because I've never given Google permission (eg on my Android phone or otherwise)?

I see occasional attempts to compare what the NSA does and what Google does, as though they're similar. Well this is precisely why Google is nothing like the NSA. Google doesn't have my permission, and they don't have my location history accordingly.

Or doesn't show you that it has your location history.

Said another way: just because you don't give Google permission, it does not mean that they don't have the data. This isn't a paranoid outlook, just stated facts: many organizations store information in an unauthorized manner. Just because they say "we have no history," it does not mean that they actually don't have it.

Similarly, Google has a notion of "Web History" which is distinct from what they know about users. The Web History can be displayed to (and deleted by) the user, but that's not the same as displaying or deleting all of Google's records about the user's activity:

https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/54050?hl=en

The more interesting thing about this was showing this to somebody who was not bothered about government spying Snowden has revealed. "I do not like this."

Same here, my parents just shrug at Snowden's stuff but when they see this they say "what's the point of this, why is this needed, why does google do it". And I agree, it's all going really too far.

This is amazing! I didn't know I or they had access to this data. I scrolled back to a vacation in Amsterdam a few months ago, on that trip I did not have data on my phone. I remember this because it was a huge pain in the ass. Sure enough all of my movements are there.

That means the phone is storing this information (based on wifi signals) then uploading it after it connects to the internet.

Could still be using GPS - getting GPS co-ordinates doesn't use any mobile data, you just need it to download map images.

I wasn't aware. I thought coordinates were drawn from wifi as accuracy plummets if I turn that off. Or stops working entirely when its off as well as data. Maybe I've been imagining things.

It's a bit of both. It can use less power to poll the nearby WiFi networks (assuming the WiFi chip is already on) and compare them against Google's database collected by StreetView than to fire up the GPS chip. Though I assume that uses more storage space as you're storing a list of SSIDs/MACs rather than a GPS coordinate pair.

It uses a mix of cell towers, wifi networks and GPS satellites. GPS is the only one that doesn't require data (cell tower and wifi location requires lookups in an online database). GPS will use data to get a quicker satellite fix if it can (look up A-GPS), but it doesn't require it.

Try opening maps and enabling GPS with no data connection - the map images won't be downloaded, but your location will still be pinpointed and will move. Wifi/cell triangulation will usually seem more accurate initially as it can take a minute to get a GPS fix.

I have stopped using google maps for a while now, switched to OsmAnd[0].

[0]http://osmand.net/

If you're super paranoid and don't use the Play store, you can also install the full featured version from F-Droid[0], the Android FOSS store. I'd suggest buying the plus version or donating to OsmAnd though, if you like it.

[0] https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=osmand&fdid=...

I know I have this enabled, and I want this enabled. Desperately needs a proper API, though.

https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0/settings - Enable/Disable your Location history.

I had no location history when I visited this page, since I usually do not grant location access to most apps, unless absolutely necessary. However, when I visited the settings page, the location history was shown as enabled.

My only guess is that viewing your Location history automatically sets it to enabled if it was previously disabled. Or, the default radio button selected on the page is the "Enabled" radio button. Either way, it is friggin' suspicious...

My radio button setting was "disable" even after I visited the location history. I think enabling location access and enabling location history are two different things, in that you can enable the detection of your current location to have better instructions from the application, but at the same time disable history.

This seems to be the best explanation so far.

Having said that, I am still wondering why I had no location history even if the enable radio button was selected. Still, no harm no foul, I guess?

Another thing worth noting is that the dropdown shows only the last 30 days of your location history - does that mean Google shows only the last 30 days or that we get to see only the last 30 days?

It's not the last 30 days, it shows 30 days worth of data on the map at once. So, you can do 30 days, and then go on the calendar and select September 1st. It will then show 30 days worth of location history on the map, starting on September 1st. I think showing any more than a 30 day period would probably just end up being a tangled mess, honestly, which is probably why they did it that way.

If you want, you should also be able to download the entirety of your location history from Google Takeout. It comes in a JSON file, and has locations in Latitude, longitude, the accuracy, and what activities it thinks you are doing (e.g. still, in a car, walking, on a bike), and the confidences for that.

Nope, I also had no location history, and when I went to the history settings mine was still disabled.

I don't know, but "Disabled" is still selected when I visit that page after viewing my location history.

When I visit the dashboard, there's a notice at the bottom stating as much, as well... "Google Location History is not yet enabled for your Google Account."

Hmm, I got the same message on the dashboard but I can swear that the Enabled radio button was selected when I visited the settings.

No harm, no foul, I guess?

Mine is disabled, I don't remember doing it, but if must have long ago.

"If you have a portable surveillance and tracking device, please turn it off. They have already tracked you in here, they already know you are listening to me; so, there is no need for you to keep it on."

-Richard Stallman

Wow, fairly nifty. Appears somebody in china hijacked my gmail account as I have some location pings there. Time for a password cycle.

Anybody else have hits from Beiliu throughout October / November? I've not kept enough up on security news but it seems like there's been sporadic access through there.

I remember opening Maps on my Android phone during that period and being localized there (instead of Milan where I live) at least a couple times, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was the reason.

I have a location in New Delhi, where I have never been. But I doubt this is because my account was hijacked. Both because I have two-step authentication, and because I have no log-ins from outside my city. Check yours here: https://security.google.com/settings/security/activity?pli=1

My log-in history isn't going back to when the access was. I've got 2-factor reengaged so I'll see if it pops up. Bizarre that would happen as the closest I've been to China in a few months is northwestern Australia. Funny jumps from Perth to central China.

Well don't be to sure about that. Google locations is very inaccurate.

Elsewhere in the thread somebody mentioned that a particular location in China around when you got your phone is likely the phone being tested before being shipped to you.

I personally find this incredibly creepy. Granted, I accepted the TOS to grant this data but I've never seen it visualized in such raw form.

You have to enable it. When you have it enabled, they send you reminders every so often letting you know that it's enabled and how to disable it. It's so uncreepy. Customer asked company to do something, company does it but insists on reaching out occasionally to remind you that they're doing it and letting you know how to turn it off.

How can this service exist for customers who want it without being "creepy"?

I can't remember enabling it. That isn't to say that I didn't enable it, but I can't remember actively saying "yes, please track my every move". I don't think that I would have said yes to that if I was aware of exactly what I was agreeing to. It appears that the complete tracking of my life started when I bought a nexus 4 - I'd imagine that I clicked through a box without really understanding what it was saying.

I will categorically say that I've never been reminded that this is enabled. Until today, when I realised that a complete log of every movement I made in the last 8 months was available, I had no idea that this level of information was viewable to anyone logged into my google account (I'd imagine that something similar has always been available to law enforcement regardless of opt-in status).

I'm not arguing that it shouldn't exist (I now understand why google now always uses my exact route when estimating commute times, and I did have a nice nostalgic trawl through this year's activities) but I do think that transparency that it does exist could be greater.

I remember enabling it. They asked very clearly do I want it or not.

It was 8 months ago, maybe you just forgot.

It's incredible the amount of data Google collected just on the period of 24h I activated Google Now for testing. Cool technology, scary preconditions.

I use this to keep track of how much time I spend at $consulting_job. It's quite handy. I don't share it with anyone, though.

Google says I was at: Yiwu, Jinhua, Zhejiang, China, 322001

I wasn't.

I'm guessing that data is pared against a MAC address of a router that once was in China, that is now in the UK.

I assume that my android phone saw the beacon and paired that data.

Wait, how can they get MAC address if you're not on the same network segment as they are?

Android powered device is probably sending the MAC address of the WiFi router along location information back home.

Maybe the BSSID. Similarly identifiable, different layer.

This, along with another comment about street view cars collecting wifi info... I'm speechless.

Google Street view cars collect WiFi data as they drive by your location. See here: http://epic.org/privacy/streetview/

Wow, it never occured ot me they would be doing THAT.

http://samy.pl/androidmap/

... or maybe someone in China has your Google login credentials?

That's unlikely - Google notifies you if you login from an unusual location.

Wow. I wasn't even aware I was sharing my location but up until April 2013 (I had a temporary android phone) I've apparently logged everywhere I've been.

This is the main reason I switched from iOS to Android. Google began deprecating features in their iOS apps and location service was one of the first to go.

I find this tracking fascinating, useful and fun. There are a number of apps that attempt to use similar data to pull together statistics and metrics about time periods.

It is opt in now and on a Galaxy S4 with the latest Android update doesn't use the battery excessively.

The Android implementation is probably smoother but both Google location sharing and history still exist on iOS via Google Now and Google+. I'm not sure about the third-party situation, though.

Have to admit, I'm a little surprised at just how accurate the data is!

will I turn it off? probably not, I know disabling locaction history likely just disables my ability to view this data.. I'd be surprised if the TOS didn't explicitly mention something like "we won't track your movement for our location history product, and only our location history product"

Me too ... I basically never turn on my GPS (too power hungry), but it managed to quite accurately record my wandering around today, including places where I never used the phone for anything.

I didn't realize cell-tracking was this accurate...

[It's not always accurate, some pretty weird locations from previous days, but a lot more than I thought it would be.]

I wouldn't mind Google storing this info if they could provide me with value in doing so. But I just don't think they can, telling me what trips I've taken is kinda cool, but I'd rather use the photos and their geolocations for that. I just don't see the value in this so I'm opting out.

Well, for me I've found value (so far) in:

* Determining time on-site for billing purposes when I was freelancing.

* Providing a pretty good indication of my whereabouts to the police (voluntarily) to clear myself as a suspect in a crime.

Plus having the data available should I ever want to do any sort of analysis on my own life is a really cool benefit to me. I've got about 3 years of history in there to look at.

Wife dropped her phone. We found it. $350 value this past month.

Google Now leans pretty heavily on location services. I've found that it's useful at home and even moreso when traveling.

My most frequently visited places are stop lights. Thanks, Google.

This is pretty cool. I wish it showed a heatmap of my location (filterable by day of week and/or time of day)!

I've done this before by exporting the KML of the data and importing it into a Fusion Table[1] which has a built-in heatmap view. I tried to do it just now and not only have they nerfed it by only allowing you to download a 30 day range, the KML file they export doesn't seem to be readable by Fusion Tables. Disappointing.

Looks like you can still download all of your data from Google Takeout[2], though. The format is pretty easy to read, converting it into something that Fusion Tables can read should be pretty easy.

[1] http://www.google.com/drive/apps.html#fusiontables

[2] https://www.google.com/settings/takeout/custom

EDIT: I modified a json->CSV jsfiddle I found so it converts the data I got from Google Takeout to something that is readable by Fusion Tables:

http://jsfiddle.net/evan/5w9Hz/embedded/result/

However, Fusion Tables thwarted me again by only showing a heatmap of the first 1000 location records, so I'm giving up on this for now.

(Your first link doesn't go anywhere.)

Sorry, it works for me. Google it if you're still having trouble. Maybe it's not available to you for some reason.

The export limit is limited to 30 days only by the UI, if you do a request but change the timestamps you can get any range of dates. This will get you all your data as a KML from 1/1/2005 to 1/1/2015:

https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0/kml?startTime=11...

I have a data block on my phone and it's interesting to see what data points they do and don't have. I'm not surprised they know when I'm at work or at home (I connect to wifi in both places), but random places along the highway? Did my phone connect to an open wifi network there?

It could poll GPS or cell tower location which wouldn't incur any data and wait until you are connected at home to upload.

Your phone didn't connect to a WiFi network, but it did scan for them. Then, when you got back on data, the scan information was connected with Google's database of WiFi networks and their locations.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/25/android-map-reveals...

Wow, felt a little sick when I saw how detailed and accurate it was. Effect of having an Android phone with all the Google location bells and whistles turned on?

Would be nice if I could get the location services features without a comprehensive history of my movements being saved (possibly forever?). It it possible?

If you trust Google when they say they won't collect it, you can just disable the location history (settings panel on that page). If you don't, you probably shouldn't use an Android device at all, with or without Location services.

Apparently the article or service or whatever is visible only for those who have signed up for Google accounts. Is this so routinely expected now that no one considers it worth mentioning? Maybe it's just something about my browser settings that gets the login-wall.

I suppose Google is tracking me regardless, and lack of a Google account only prevents me from seeing the part of the data they choose to show. I'll still continue opting out tho, in case it makes surveillance a little harder.

Edit: found a short explanation, http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2010/05/27/google-latitude...

> I suppose Google is tracking me regardless, and lack of a Google account only prevents me from seeing the part of the data they choose to show.

Hu? If you don't have a google account how would they track you? I guess they have your IP address, but this is for your android phone to send them the data and it won't without an account.

https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0/dashboard is even "scarier". A combination of your locations history and nearby places.

I had a look at my location history. Interesting to see that in the past (on an HTC Desire) the only place it seems to have picked up on this was when connecting to my WiFi at home and even then, very rarely.

The day I bought a Nexus 4, the location history exploded. Must have been something I accepted during the setup process of the phone that included turning on location history although I have a feeling it may be lumped in the general 'turning on location services'.

I've now turned off location history, but have left location sharing turned on (needed for Maps).

Is this supposed to show just information from a phone/device that publishes location data or does it use information from ISPs to estimate location based on IP as well?

Either way, it's completely blank for me.

I want this data, but I want it to live on my server, not Google's

No matter what you say about the NSA watching us, Google would still probably keep it more secure.

Wonder if there's a way to modify your host file and capture it similarly.

On the one side it's creepy.

On the other hand, I volunteered to have Google store this information and such so they can provide me with better services. And the dashboard / facts are pretty nifty; wish I could set the time scale to a year. There's a few pretty big jumps in my history, trip to the US, another to Turkey, and if my data was working, there'd be another to the UK.

Also good to know I still have 330.000 kilometers to get to the moon.

I've turned location history off three times now, I want to know why Google think they have the right to silently turn it back on again without asking me.

I think it's only a question of time when the data mining industry becomes so big and mature that it will be able to subsidize gadgets, or at least cheap ones.

You want to know my location history, my searches, website visits, purchases? Give that (future) cheap iPhone or Android away for free!

(Personally I prefer to minimize my surveillance information, but surely there will be those who'd gladly agree.)

I just got to relive the unexpected drive to another state to the NICU the day my son was born. That's worth the loss of privacy.

I like how it gets all confused by the fact that I have several devices in different locations all signed in to the same account.

This is awesome in every sense of the word.

Really wish there was a service like this that only stored the data on your computer/server and not at a place that has an open door policy with the USG. In the mean time, where do I go to turn this off?

edit: found it. On Android, Settings -> Location (under "Personal") ->Google Location Reporting

I'm happy that it doesn't work for me. Not that I doubt that google knows my whereabouts anyway...

You have to enable it if you want it.

How do I activate this? If it's android only it might just be worth switching (that and contact mgmt)

Aha - Thank you DjangoTheOriginal https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0/settings

> We are sorry, but you do not have access to this service. Please log in to your Control Panel to enable this service.

> Do read these articles to learn more about

> Controlling user access to Google Apps services

> Turning services on/off for certain users

Well, I guess I got that going for me.

0 results for me.

0 for me also, and I had a Nexus 4 for a while... they must ask a question about enabling this feature.

Mine is very inaccurate. It shows me Saturday on Thursday last week, but misses a few places. There are also a bunch of spikes into the middle of the river I live near, and I haven't even been in sight of it

Say you are parents.

Would you people use this tool with your children? Is it justified for that kind of usage? Can't this data be abused by some third party (that will directly affect you)?

You have no location history for December 9, 2013You have no location history for December 9, 2013

Feels good. What can I do to stay that way?

If you're like me, you had the wrong google account selected. Once I switched to my phone's, it was terrifyingly accurate.

> What can I do to stay that way?

Don't sign into Google's services.

I live in a low population density area and they seem to think i enjoy bouncing around 40-60 miles from cell tower to cell tower.

So damn cool it's scary and so damn scary it's cool.

I laughed as it made me reflect a little on how boring my life is lately.

What's your work/home/other ratio on the dashboard?

Mine is 26/63/10.

You are being watched.

For some reason it thinks I took a airline trip to atlanta

Yeah, let's help people track me wherever I go... ;(

Someone really need to speed up with their Maps app for places outside US. I am in Indian subcontinent and other alternatives are nowhere near as good as Google.

Google, what have you become? Reading lot of Ayn Rand lately?

This makes me want to mail my phone to myself.

I... need to leave my apartment more.

I see empty map...

my dashboard is also almost empty. This basically means you need to get out of the house more, hangout at restaurants, coffee shops etc!

Completly empty. As far as I know I live on Earth.

So cool.

*official

I've kept this on for a while, because since I already have a phone that runs non-free Google-written silently-updatable software, I already leak all this data anyway.

I figure if I'm leaking this data, I might as well leak it in a way that lets me see it too.

I don't want to live in a surveillance state, and I think humanity is capable of growing beyond that. But I also don't think that making the futile gesture of turning off my ability to see my location data is going to do anything.

When I read about the NSA tracking mobile phones worldwide, I decided to put my mobile "phone" in flight mode - permanently.

It's a PDA now. All you need to do is tell your people to call you on your landline. Like we did a few years back. (Reminder: it was actually possible to live like that - plus, you're not on an electronic leash anymore, it feels really good.)

Nobody I know under 30 even has a landline. It was possible to live without computers at all but that doesn't mean I would choose to do it now.

I now use this: https://offpocket.com/

It has much the same effect. You can leave the phone powered on, but whenever it is in the case it is effectively in flight mode but without requiring me to do anything.

It feels quite liberating to be in control of communication like this and to consume when you want to. A form of zero-distraction for life.

OTOH, when you just turn off the link to cell towers, you gain huge amounts of battery time - quite nice.

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