5 ms·

Also, if they were behind a configuration option and defaulted to on, most people would be fine turning it off and forgetting about it. This seems to be about

Also, if they were behind a configuration option and defaulted to on, most people would be fine turning it off and forgetting about it. This seems to be about lack of control. It's good for developers to think carefully before they ship products that do things with no way of being told not to. EDIT: Welp. Apparently these settings exist. I don't understand the point of the blog post then. Why is it so upsetting, if you have the ability to turn it off?

daodedickinson 9y ago
Default on is outrageous. It's clear the average person doesn't know how to access and manage even some of these settings, much less understand what they do or be able to understand what privacy violations will continue despite turning something off in one place.
- jonathankoren 9y ago
  And that is why they default to on. If they defaulted to off, no one would turn it on, and they wouldn’t be able to hoover up the data.
- izacus 9y ago
  You are explicitly asked about that feature when settinng up your phone for the first time.
  - DrScump 9y ago
    Many non-technical types just have the store staffer walk through those steps, and others aren't likely to understand the implications of those settings.
    - brokenmachine 9y ago
      They can hardly complain to Google when the device doesn't behave as desired then. They should complain to the store staffer or make some effort to find out what those settings the are enabled actually do.
fixermark 9y ago
I believe that is the current state of affairs. Notifications can be suppressed in Android apps, right?
- Siemer 9y ago
  Yeah, but in this case that might also disable the notifications of Google Maps navigation. That's why I simply tolerated the occasional nag until today, when this panicky article prompted me to dig a little deeper. Took all of one minute to get rid of the location spam.
izacus 9y ago
Both location history and the notifications can be easily turned off on Android and Maps app. What do you mean about lack of control?
aiiane 9y ago
Maps app -> Settings -> Notifications -> Your Contributions (and uncheck boxes as desired). The controls exist.
- crag 9y ago
  But does that mean Google stops collecting the data? Sure, no notifications, but will they still know what restaurant I just walked past?
  - izacus 9y ago
    As mentioned several times, disable Location History under Settings -> Google -> Location (on stock Google Androids you find that setting under Settings -> Location as well).
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - aiiane 9y ago
    Depends on whether you've opted into Location History or not, which is the master setting for most of Google's persistent location-based features. You can check the setting here: https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols
  - dlubarov 9y ago
    Yes; you can see the location history Google has been collecting at https://www.google.com/maps/timeline https://www.google.com/maps/timeline But it's easy to stop collecting and/or delete location data; see https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687 https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687
- wvenable 9y ago
  My guess is that doesn't turn off tracking but now you just won't be notified of it. I admit though, as a user of the data, I find this very helpful. Google is absolutely brilliant at give real time traffic information to roads and businesses. You want to know if Costco is busy right now, they'll tell you. Accident getting there going to cost you 5 minutes, they'll tell you that too.
millstone 9y ago
Because if you turn it off in one place, it just starts happening in another: Yah. I disabled Google Maps tracking, then Google Search started notifying me about places I was near.
- lern_too_spel 9y ago
  It's not Google Maps that's doing the tracking. He turned off notifications in Google Maps, not location history, which does the actual tracking that other apps consume. He agreed to location tracking when he first set up the phone because the first run setup explicitly asks whether he wants that on or off.
  - fixermark 9y ago
    A harder, deeper question, is whether the average user is informed enough about "location history" to know whether they want that on or off, and whose responsibility it should be to inform them. ... as a wise man once observed, people talk a long game about how important their privacy is, but then empirically, researchers continue to discover you can get people to divulge a lot of personal information for a Snickers bar, if not less (survey-takers who just stand around in malls and ask people to fill out clipboards are an example of this---and while they are a dying breed, they're a dying breed because it's cheaper now to collect that information online, not because people have gotten cagier about divulging it).
    - jdietrich 9y ago
      Google are miles ahead of the other big players in terms of transparency and user control. They actively prompt users to review their privacy settings. They provide a plain-English guide to what data they collect and a simple process to choose your privacy settings. I do find Google's level of data collection a bit creepy, but I also don't see how they could reduce the amount of data they collect without reducing the quality of their service. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6227261 https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6227261 https://privacy.google.com/your-data.html https://privacy.google.com/your-data.html https://myaccount.google.com/privacycheckup https://myaccount.google.com/privacycheckup
ucaetano 9y ago
> I don't understand the point of the blog post then. Why is it so upsetting, if you have the ability to turn it off? Because people like to complain. Especially when they're getting a free service (as in money).
rdiddly 9y ago
It's "upsetting" (a strong word not used in the post) to new users because the default is "on" and that's the first impression they get when they turn the device on. Which is the sound of Google blowing it and sending people back to the Apple ecosystem, not necessarily the sound of someone crying.
fixermark 9y ago
> I don't understand the point of the blog post then. Why is it so upsetting, if you have the ability to turn it off? I'm not sure the original author knows that they can be turned off. ... or perhaps (if I'm being less charitable) the original author doesn't care; they don't want to be asked in the first place, ever (and are a touch naive about exactly how it is Google Maps gets the data it can vend to end-users).

daodedickinson 9y ago

Default on is outrageous. It's clear the average person doesn't know how to access and manage even some of these settings, much less understand what they do or be able to understand what privacy violations will continue despite turning something off in one place.

jonathankoren 9y ago
And that is why they default to on. If they defaulted to off, no one would turn it on, and they wouldn’t be able to hoover up the data.
izacus 9y ago
You are explicitly asked about that feature when settinng up your phone for the first time.
- DrScump 9y ago
  Many non-technical types just have the store staffer walk through those steps, and others aren't likely to understand the implications of those settings.
  - brokenmachine 9y ago
    They can hardly complain to Google when the device doesn't behave as desired then. They should complain to the store staffer or make some effort to find out what those settings the are enabled actually do.

fixermark 9y ago

I believe that is the current state of affairs. Notifications can be suppressed in Android apps, right?

Siemer 9y ago
Yeah, but in this case that might also disable the notifications of Google Maps navigation. That's why I simply tolerated the occasional nag until today, when this panicky article prompted me to dig a little deeper. Took all of one minute to get rid of the location spam.

izacus 9y ago

Both location history and the notifications can be easily turned off on Android and Maps app. What do you mean about lack of control?

aiiane 9y ago

Maps app -> Settings -> Notifications -> Your Contributions (and uncheck boxes as desired). The controls exist.

crag 9y ago
But does that mean Google stops collecting the data? Sure, no notifications, but will they still know what restaurant I just walked past?
- izacus 9y ago
  As mentioned several times, disable Location History under Settings -> Google -> Location (on stock Google Androids you find that setting under Settings -> Location as well).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- aiiane 9y ago
  Depends on whether you've opted into Location History or not, which is the master setting for most of Google's persistent location-based features. You can check the setting here: https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols
- dlubarov 9y ago
  Yes; you can see the location history Google has been collecting at https://www.google.com/maps/timeline https://www.google.com/maps/timeline But it's easy to stop collecting and/or delete location data; see https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687 https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3118687
wvenable 9y ago
My guess is that doesn't turn off tracking but now you just won't be notified of it. I admit though, as a user of the data, I find this very helpful. Google is absolutely brilliant at give real time traffic information to roads and businesses. You want to know if Costco is busy right now, they'll tell you. Accident getting there going to cost you 5 minutes, they'll tell you that too.

millstone 9y ago

Because if you turn it off in one place, it just starts happening in another: Yah. I disabled Google Maps tracking, then Google Search started notifying me about places I was near.

lern_too_spel 9y ago
It's not Google Maps that's doing the tracking. He turned off notifications in Google Maps, not location history, which does the actual tracking that other apps consume. He agreed to location tracking when he first set up the phone because the first run setup explicitly asks whether he wants that on or off.
- fixermark 9y ago
  A harder, deeper question, is whether the average user is informed enough about "location history" to know whether they want that on or off, and whose responsibility it should be to inform them. ... as a wise man once observed, people talk a long game about how important their privacy is, but then empirically, researchers continue to discover you can get people to divulge a lot of personal information for a Snickers bar, if not less (survey-takers who just stand around in malls and ask people to fill out clipboards are an example of this---and while they are a dying breed, they're a dying breed because it's cheaper now to collect that information online, not because people have gotten cagier about divulging it).
  - jdietrich 9y ago
    Google are miles ahead of the other big players in terms of transparency and user control. They actively prompt users to review their privacy settings. They provide a plain-English guide to what data they collect and a simple process to choose your privacy settings. I do find Google's level of data collection a bit creepy, but I also don't see how they could reduce the amount of data they collect without reducing the quality of their service. https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6227261 https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6227261 https://privacy.google.com/your-data.html https://privacy.google.com/your-data.html https://myaccount.google.com/privacycheckup https://myaccount.google.com/privacycheckup

ucaetano 9y ago

> I don't understand the point of the blog post then. Why is it so upsetting, if you have the ability to turn it off? Because people like to complain. Especially when they're getting a free service (as in money).

rdiddly 9y ago

It's "upsetting" (a strong word not used in the post) to new users because the default is "on" and that's the first impression they get when they turn the device on. Which is the sound of Google blowing it and sending people back to the Apple ecosystem, not necessarily the sound of someone crying.

fixermark 9y ago

> I don't understand the point of the blog post then. Why is it so upsetting, if you have the ability to turn it off? I'm not sure the original author knows that they can be turned off. ... or perhaps (if I'm being less charitable) the original author doesn't care; they don't want to be asked in the first place, ever (and are a touch naive about exactly how it is Google Maps gets the data it can vend to end-users).