Google Tracks Your Phone Location, Regardless of Your Permission

Orgasmo

Silver Belt
@Silver
Joined
Dec 13, 2013
Messages
13,017
Reaction score
5,192
Anybody surprised? You data is the most valuable commodity to Google, Facebook and Amazon. All of them feeds that data to advertisers and governments so they can bypass any judicial review process.

Google records users' locations even when they have asked it not to, a report from the Associated Press has suggested. The issue could affect up to two billion Android and Apple devices which use Google for maps or search. The study, verified by researchers at Princeton University, has angered US law-makers. The study found that users' whereabouts are recorded even when location history has been disabled.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45183041
 
Android has the equivalent to "Find my iPhone", so I figure it's basically always monitoring.

Even if you can change these settings, I dont it would mean much as these settings tend to be so deeply embedded and tough to find. iPhone does the same btw, and you can turn off those services (I had to, the suggestions were super annoying).
 
Libertarianism taught me a long time ago that private businesses pose no threat to my personal liberty or privacy. So I'm not scared.
 
Cattle are marked by a tag in their ear so that no matter where they go it is known who their owner is.

Irish_cow_big.jpg


For humans they came up with this.

th
 
Yea it's pretty messed up. Tech companies track our every move, share our personal info and use persuasive design to influence how we act. I don't think that there is any coming back from this.
 
Libertarianism taught me a long time ago that private businesses pose no threat to my personal liberty or privacy. So I'm not scared.

It taught me to vote with the dollar when I inevitably didn't like something.
 
Was talking about things like this in another thread. I wonder how many people who act like this is something pretty bad all but reflexively use their products still? Sitting here lamenting a big company tagging you like so much livestock while using their phone, their search engine, their map program, and their video service day in, day out? Guess what people - you've voted with your habits and wallets that this is what you want. Your protestations are a silly little bit of hypocrisy.

I always find people's reactions to Google's activities interesting. Many people adopted their products for their "free" services and their "Do no evil" motto but as people become increasingly aware of both the threat they pose in various important elements of life, and the "do no evil" thing has proven to be a convenient motto rather than an actual guiding maxim, people have continued to use their products - just with a bit of grumbling.

I've seen a minor uproar on the internet, already, over this thing with China, and I'll be curious to see whether this leads to any response.

I've seen uproars over people believing that Google is manipulating their algorithm to confirm to a political bias, and I've heard the claim that they are influencing elections in significant ways through doing it, and in general controlling what information people have access to on virtually everything - but the people making the claim still use Android phones, Youtube, the Google search engine, and sometimes even things like Google Home and Nest products.

I've heard people anxious and outraged over how pervasive Google's information gathering is - but the people making the claim still use Android phones, Youtube, the Google search engine, and sometimes even things like Google Home and Nest products.

I've heard people express worries about Google's AI research - but the people making the claim still use Android phones, Youtube, the Google search engine, and sometimes even things like Google Home and Nest products.

I've heard a lot of people talk about how the James Damore thing shows a real problem with Google and their commitment to free thought, which one would think would be a big issue for a company which controls the flow of information to countless millions - but the people making the claim still use Android phones, Youtube, the Google search engine, and sometimes even things like Google Home and Nest products.

Simply put, I see people express grave, far reaching worries about Google as an entity - yet people still use their products like they're going out of style. What's up with the cognitive disconnect over Google - this simultaneous extreme fear over the company's activity and how far its reach is growing versus people still gobbling up their products like mad? Are any of you in this camp - think Google is getting way out of control, but still use their products wholesale? Frankly, I'd be shocked if a good portion of you weren't.
 
well yeah. Ever notice your GPS has a "home" that you didnt program into it? Get traffic updates when its time to leave work? Facebook pops ads for things you talked to someone about?

This has been well known for awhile now.
 
As long as they can’t be used legally against you then I guess I’m fine, but what do I know...
 
By now, I would prefer an actual Skynet to google.

Google is the devil. I use Startpage a lot, which returns google search results but runs it through multiple proxies to disguise your location. They bill themselves as, "the world's most private search engine."

https://www.startpage.com/

I knew Google was much more than meets the eye when they started doing weird things like investing millions of dollars into life extension. It sounds like something straight out of Blade Runner. They invested in a company called Calico but Calico is not trying to cure cancer or other diseases so people live longer, they are researching how to defeat aging.

In September of this year, Google announced its newest project, Calico, which promised to take on the illness known as aging which effects us as human beings.

The company won't be directly attached to Google's "bottom line," Primack writes, but will receive hundreds of millions in funding from the search giant spread out over the course of a few years. While it initially appeared to be a startup, the company may be more along the lines of a research lab, a sort of Google X with a biotech focus and a mandate to defeat aging.
https://www.theverge.com/2013/10/9/...vesting-hundreds-of-million-into-its-new-life

That is some next level shit. Their mandate is to "defeat aging." Now what in the actual fuck is a search engine doing investing hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat aging? It seems like something out of a Sci-Fi movie.
 
As long as they can’t be used legally against you then I guess I’m fine, but what do I know...

When a four star general can get railroaded you know shit is out of hand. The F.B.I. pretty much spied on General Patraeus and ended his career.

th


Beyond my ridiculous comparison though, I'm pretty sure law enforcement confiscates cell phones and uses whatever data they can get all the time.
 
Anybody surprised? You data is the most valuable commodity to Google, Facebook and Amazon. All of them feeds that data to advertisers and governments so they can bypass any judicial review process.


https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45183041

Google has more power and influence than most national governments on this planet. IMO, the fact that it spies on us is almost as bad as if the US government did it directly.
 
Who the fuck do those MF'ers think they are???
 
Back
Top