Carrier. LocationSmart must respect user preference from carrier. It is the carrier/consumers data, ultimately, so it is between the consumer and the carrier.

Carrier. LocationSmart must respect user preference from carrier. It is the carrier/consumers data, ultimately, so it is between the consumer and the carrier. LocationSmart is down stream and must respect the privacy wishes of the consumer/carrier. There are two layers of problems here. (1) carrier could just /never/ provide data to LS if user did not opt in. (2) LS could not have terrible bugs. Problem (1) is hard. So carriers just give companies like LS full access to location data long with the users preferences and LS agrees to respect users wishes. I think the carriers carry way more blame in this whole thing than people are acknowledging in this whole thread. Users that didn't opt in are still having their data made available to these third parties cause it's easier to implement. It reminds me of the legal fiction the NSA uses. They collect ALL the data / traffic. But they can only ACCESSS the data with a warrant. In this case the virtual firewall leaks horribly between the carrier and LS and the incentive to make it strong does not exist. Totally different situation but the parallels are there.