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Too bad your location is still sold by your cellular provider even if you delete all those apps.
by eugeniub 7y ago
Too bad your location is still sold by your cellular provider even if you delete all those apps.
- gourou 7y ago> AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon have pledged to stop selling location data to brokers who may sell the information on the black market. Most of them stopped according to the article.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoWe should of course still outlaw the practice to prevent future data privacy violations.
- AndrewGaspar 7y agoIt's good they're keeping it off the black market, but I suspect many on here are opposed to above the board sales, too.
- ceejayoz 7y agoThose pledges to stop haven't been worth much in the past. https://www.wired.com/story/carriers-sell-location-data-third-parties-privacy/ https://www.wired.com/story/carriers-sell-location-data-thir... > Amid the ensuing customer outrage and mounting congressional scrutiny, the major US carriers promised to stop selling user location data to outside brokers. Which is part of what makes the Motherboard story so troubling: Seven months later, it remains easy and cheap for anyone to buy data about a phone's location without a warrant or any justification at all. All you need is a phone number to target. In Motherboard's case it was a T-Mobile customer, but data brokers claim to be able to provide location information from all the major carriers.
- kerkeslager 7y agoPledging to stop and stopping are two very different things. Pledging to stop is pretty standard operating procedure whenever bad privacy practices cause a PR stink, but it's quite common to see the same company with the same PR stink a year or two later. Pledges to stop often have more to do with the media cycle than any actual intention to stop.
- smolder 7y agoYeah, a good example of this is Pepsi pledging to remove Brominated Vegetable Oil from their drinks in response to a campaign by a young student that caught media attention. Years later, they never did any such thing.
- hanniabu 7y agoWhich really makes no sense when you think about it because it's already illegal in Europe and Japan so might as well just remove it altogether.
- wysifnwyg 7y agoIt all depends on the monetary difference doing so makes. If it's significantly cheaper, then they will continue to include it for legal markets.
- JustSomeNobody 7y agoRight. Last year (2018) they pledged to stop. Then didn't. Then this year they pledged again. We'll see... [0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/after-broken-promise-att-says-itll-stop-selling-phone-location-data/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/after-broken-pro...
- guelo 7y agoOnly to the brokers they don't like. How they know which brokers sell to black markets?
- eugeniub 7y agoOk so they're still selling location data to brokers who may do something other than sell the information on the black market.
- BurningFrog 7y agoI don't think my provider has GPS level location data, only cell tower level?
- ryandrake 7y agoYou’d be surprised. Look up “SUPL”.
- gruez 7y agoI did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS SUPL seems to be for getting AGPS data. No location data is actually sent to the cell towers.
- wysifnwyg 7y agoGPS is a one-way system. If they have your GPS data, it's because they are causing your device to transmit that data back.
- cbsks 7y agoYour phone will send GPS level location data if the provider requests it: https://www.spirent.com/~/media/white%20papers/mobile/lte_lbs_white_paper_2012.pdf https://www.spirent.com/~/media/white%20papers/mobile/lte_lb... "SUPL 2.0 features the use of geographical ‘triggers’, which enable the UE to report its position if it enters, leaves, or is within a particular area. Triggering may be enabled either by the network or by the SET, with the two entities agreeing on trigger criteria. Area Event triggers enable key mobile applications such as Check-in services, shopping deals and offers, location based advertising, and child location."
- everdrive 7y agoYes, but does AT&T only have the tower data, or all the data from the phone? This is a huge difference.
- whatshisface 7y agoTowers can triangulate you with latency and signal strength. I don't know how accurate that can be made, although as successive generations switch to higher frequencies it can only be getting better.
- everdrive 7y agoI understand that, but AT&T (presumably) wouldn't get things like: - accelerometer data - Local and historical WiFi networks - Application logs - Cookies - etc Is this correct?
- carapace 7y agoAre there any providers that don't engage in shenanigans?
- JustSomeNobody 7y agoAre there any businesses at all that don't engage in shenanigans? It's getting very hard to find them.
- dbatten 7y agoAlso, your phone manufacturer.