4 ms·

Why would anybody turn on location history? (Serious question, I don't even have Google Play Services in my phone). 95 % users are known not to touch any settin

Why would anybody turn on location history? (Serious question, I don't even have Google Play Services in my phone). 95 % users are known not to touch any settings. I guess Google has a trick to make more of them do it. Which one?

MikusR 7y ago
Why wouldn't I? I can see where and when I was, how long I was there. It can give context to notes and photos. It's essentially an extension of memory.
- novaRom 7y ago
  If it's an extension of your memory, then why deliberately share it with others, with police, with FBI? There were many stories on HN how random people got into troubles because of this "feature".
  - Broken_Hippo 7y ago
    And this is something that should be a call for change in government, a call for change in leadership, and a change in how the laws are structured. Perhaps better police/FBI training. And so on. I'll also mention that these things are memorable because they are outliers in general, and sometimes spectacular. This is why we remember plane crashes and ignore the numerous shower accidents that kill folks.
  - MikusR 7y ago
    There are even more stories of people getting into troubles just by walking, sitting, sleeping.
  - shadowgovt 7y ago
    Because it also distributes to all the devices I own so when I want to use my own data, I don't have to remember whether it's in the phone's store, the laptop's store, the tablet's store, and so on.
soneil 7y ago
I strongly suspect Google has two separate classes of location history. Data which has been anonymised, and data which hasn't. I strongly suspect that your location history always exists, and that "turning location history on" only gives them permission to keep it personally-identifying. Google make a lot of use of location data. It's used to map traffic in Maps, and is/was/? used to map wifi to improve geolocation. These reports are just another example. And they'd all work just fine with anonymised data. (I have no proof of any of this, hence over-using the phrase 'strongly suspect'.)
Broken_Hippo 7y ago
I'm pretty sure it is on by default: I'm both happy and paranoid about this. I've found a phone using this. The spouse left the phone on the car: It fell off a bit past where we had stopped. This was on a mountaintop, in the countryside, traveling back from Sweden to Trondheim - not too far from the Swedish border. Location services meant we could head out and look for it. We could see if it was moving (it wasn't, so it likely wasn't stolen) and we were able to use my phone to find his. It was pretty accurate, even in that location. The phone was only a few months old. It had some scratches, but was otherwise fine. (I think the screen is now going out, but he drops his phone regularly at work and the waiting time for a new screen was 5-6 months to get the screen). But I do understand that it means that governments could track us: Companies obviously are and I shudder to think of a motivated, angry ex or a motivated stalker. Turning the phone off doesn't help, and I don't know how far "turning off tracking" goes since there are ways to get, at least, a general location using tower information. I keep hoping that it'll turn into a greater good sort of thing, but this will only happen if governments change laws to better match people's behaviors so long as they aren't endangering others. I don't think that would happen in the US without major change, but I have hope where I'm at.
grey-area 7y ago
If you want to store places in maps for example, it gets turned on (last time I checked anyway). I imagine there are lots of little features like this which turn it on.
swebs 7y ago
They make it very difficult to keep location data turned off. If you accidentally open Google Maps, a pop up appears where dismissing it turns on location tracking. I also think they make you enable it nowadays to use Bluetooth.
nicoburns 7y ago
The maps app pops up a notification asking for the permission every time it opens.

MikusR 7y ago

Why wouldn't I? I can see where and when I was, how long I was there. It can give context to notes and photos. It's essentially an extension of memory.

novaRom 7y ago
If it's an extension of your memory, then why deliberately share it with others, with police, with FBI? There were many stories on HN how random people got into troubles because of this "feature".
- Broken_Hippo 7y ago
  And this is something that should be a call for change in government, a call for change in leadership, and a change in how the laws are structured. Perhaps better police/FBI training. And so on. I'll also mention that these things are memorable because they are outliers in general, and sometimes spectacular. This is why we remember plane crashes and ignore the numerous shower accidents that kill folks.
- MikusR 7y ago
  There are even more stories of people getting into troubles just by walking, sitting, sleeping.
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  Because it also distributes to all the devices I own so when I want to use my own data, I don't have to remember whether it's in the phone's store, the laptop's store, the tablet's store, and so on.

soneil 7y ago

I strongly suspect Google has two separate classes of location history. Data which has been anonymised, and data which hasn't. I strongly suspect that your location history always exists, and that "turning location history on" only gives them permission to keep it personally-identifying. Google make a lot of use of location data. It's used to map traffic in Maps, and is/was/? used to map wifi to improve geolocation. These reports are just another example. And they'd all work just fine with anonymised data. (I have no proof of any of this, hence over-using the phrase 'strongly suspect'.)

Broken_Hippo 7y ago

I'm pretty sure it is on by default: I'm both happy and paranoid about this. I've found a phone using this. The spouse left the phone on the car: It fell off a bit past where we had stopped. This was on a mountaintop, in the countryside, traveling back from Sweden to Trondheim - not too far from the Swedish border. Location services meant we could head out and look for it. We could see if it was moving (it wasn't, so it likely wasn't stolen) and we were able to use my phone to find his. It was pretty accurate, even in that location. The phone was only a few months old. It had some scratches, but was otherwise fine. (I think the screen is now going out, but he drops his phone regularly at work and the waiting time for a new screen was 5-6 months to get the screen). But I do understand that it means that governments could track us: Companies obviously are and I shudder to think of a motivated, angry ex or a motivated stalker. Turning the phone off doesn't help, and I don't know how far "turning off tracking" goes since there are ways to get, at least, a general location using tower information. I keep hoping that it'll turn into a greater good sort of thing, but this will only happen if governments change laws to better match people's behaviors so long as they aren't endangering others. I don't think that would happen in the US without major change, but I have hope where I'm at.

grey-area 7y ago

If you want to store places in maps for example, it gets turned on (last time I checked anyway). I imagine there are lots of little features like this which turn it on.

swebs 7y ago

They make it very difficult to keep location data turned off. If you accidentally open Google Maps, a pop up appears where dismissing it turns on location tracking. I also think they make you enable it nowadays to use Bluetooth.

nicoburns 7y ago

The maps app pops up a notification asking for the permission every time it opens.