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Keep in mind that these "anonymous" data points aren't. Your phones MAC address exposes your home wifi network thanks to Google's databases. They also expose where you work, where your friends houses are, what your favorite coffee shop is. This is beyond dangerous, it's completely unacceptable.

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I am confused where you are linking MAC addresses of phones with MAC addresses of home wireless routers.

Your devices broadcast the names of networks it has seen recently in frequent intervals. "Yo HomeWiFI you there" essentially. Anybody listening can then correlate them with Googles database to find out detailed information about the user. Usually people have a huge list of connected networks which will be announced and give huge information about the user. "MIT" SSID? Probably a student then.

Phones don't simply broadcast a complete list of networks they remember.

yes they do.

http://conferences.sigcomm.org/imc/2013/papers/imc148-barber...

unacceptable on which end? The coffee shop collecting the info or your phone exposing it?

Google shouldn't have collected the data, devices shouldn't be announcing previously connected networks, and this awful privacy destroying system shouldn't exist.

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