4 ms·

Tile buyer Life360 reportedly sells precise user location data to nearly anyone

106 points by dmitrygr 5y ago

ryantgtg 5y ago
Somehow I hadn’t heard of either Tile or Airtags until right now. Just so I understand, Tile was _not_ selling location data, but then last month they were bought by a company with a history of selling location data?
- newaccount74 5y ago
  Yes. Tile was a somewhat popular trakcking app that used a crowd-sourced network to find their tags. In recent iOS versions Apple crippled the Tile app by adding a lot of privacy settings related to location and bluetooth tracking. Tile complained loudly when Apple released Airtags. Airtags are basically the same as the Tile trackers, except that the privacy settings that crippled the Tile app don't apply to Apple's app. It seems that Tile realised that they have no growth potential any more since they have no chance to compete against Apple's first party solution, so all they could do is try to sell out before all their users were gone.
renzo88 5y ago
I got rid of all of my tile devices a while ago due to privacy concerns. Airtags are a vast improvement, and it's sad that google hasn't shipped an equivalent.
- sixothree 5y ago
  You mention privacy concerns and wanting to use Google in the same paragraph.
  - notRobot 5y ago
    Google is definitely no champion of privacy. But at least they don't sell your precise location data.
    - pueblito 5y ago
      Because they purchase it
      - blacksmith_tb 5y ago
        But they don't need to purchase it, they've already got it. I think the idea is they aren't willing to sell it as it's key to their business, and they'd rather not make a little more off selling it and risk their competitors leveraging it.
    - Tempest1981 5y ago
      Do they use it to target ads directly? Also check your cellular carrier's privacy settings, like CPNI. https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/verizon-is-tracking-iphone-users-by-default-theres-nothing-apple-can-do-how-to-turn-it-off.html https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/verizon-is-tracking-iphone-us...
      - judge2020 5y ago
        The privacy tradeoffs someone is willing to make will vary person-to-person. For many, Google only using precise location data for Ads and (probably) not shipping it off to random data brokers is a good tradeoff for powering and using the many products they offer - eg. YouTube, Maps, email/calendar, etc. Even for life360, it's very likely more than 50% of their userbase is fine with this given the features Tile and Life360 provide them.
    - HPsquared 5y ago
      Also, if Google already knows where I am at all times, then having them also handle some location tags would entail no further loss of privacy.
    - sixothree 5y ago
      First sentence says it all.
  - renzo88 5y ago
    I didn't mention wanting to use google. I do think it's unfortunate that android users don't have a privacy protecting item tracking solution. Airtags are a wonderful product.
- tyingq 5y ago
  The tiles do have that audible ding feature that's nice for keys, like stuck in the couch, for example.
  - hazebooth 5y ago
    AirTags also have an audible sound that can be played, I use this feature for when I lose my keys
    - tyingq 5y ago
      Ah, thanks. I had assumed they didn't based since there weren't any visible holes for a speaker.
      - dag11 5y ago
        It's actually a really cool design, the entire white half of the shell _is_ the speaker diaphragm!
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
Ooohhh ... That's gonna leave a mark ...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
NelsonMinar 5y ago
The marketplace for selling personal location data to third parties should be outlawed.
- nly 5y ago
  Why would the government do that? They're probably one of their best customers
  - bun_at_work 5y ago
    Why would they buy the data when they can subpoena it?
    - lostapathy 5y ago
      It's easier to convince the budget department to pay for it than convince a judge you have a legal reason for it.
    - bhhaskin 5y ago
      Because they can buy it with out dealing with the legal system. Much easier to get a judge to sign off on it when there is no judge.
    - exhilaration 5y ago
      "Military intelligence buys location data instead of getting warrants" (10 months ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25896626 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25896626
tiahura 5y ago
“CEO Chris Hulls said the company has "no means to confirm or deny the accuracy" of whether Life360 is a large source of location data for the industry.” Buh-bye. AirTag it is then. To bad they don’t have a product to compete with the tile sticker.
- throwaway4220 5y ago
  Y'know if he just said yes, I think more people will use the product knowing what they are trading for a free product
- anm89 5y ago
  This is such an insane quote. The CEO is claiming he just has no idea how a core part of the business functions and that he wouldn't be able to figure out the answer even if he wanted to meaning literally not a single person in the entire organization understands the core business. That's a worse admission than saying you track your users in my mind. Also clearly a lie but just an insane response either way.
msla 5y ago
Some interesting information: https://web.archive.org/web/20201201220754/https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/d22i83/i_am_life360s_misunderstood_cofounder_and_ceo_ama/ https://web.archive.org/web/20201201220754/https://www.reddi... https://web.archive.org/web/20191225060351/https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/comments/chysom/im_a_gay_college_student_and_my_family_is/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191225060351/https://www.reddi... https://web.archive.org/web/20210609133523/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/22/dont-leave-campus-parents-are-now-using-tracking-apps-watch-their-kids-college/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210609133523/https://www.washi...
HPsquared 5y ago
For anyone confused by the title: Tile is a company that makes Bluetooth tracking devices.
- munchler 5y ago
  And which was acquired by Life360 last month.
Tempest1981 5y ago
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29460074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29460074 (93 comments, 3 days ago)
monkeybutton 5y ago
The market for personal data in the US is grotesque. Go see what Acxiom and their partners will sell you.
kwertyoowiyop 5y ago
Don’t worry, it’s completely anonymized. The data could be from literally ANY of the people who spend the night at your home and work where you work!
- qwertyuiop12 5y ago
  I though that I was the only guy who think this
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- cameldrv 5y ago
  Yep, and then they buy your anonymized credit card history. Then they notice that a certain location trace includes a particular Starbucks that corresponds to a purchase on the anonymous credit card. You get 3-4 of these coincidences, and you can be sure that they're the same person. Then they notice that when you open someone's app, you report a particular location, and you're also coming from a particular residential IP address. Around the same time, you access a website with a particular tracking cookie from the same IP. Voila, they've got location history, a good portion of your web browsing history, and purchase history. It's fairly easy to pin this down to a name at that point. This is not a theoretical thing, it's a multi billion dollar business.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

106 points by dmitrygr 5y ago

Somehow I hadn’t heard of either Tile or Airtags until right now. Just so I understand, Tile was _not_ selling location data, but then last month they were bought by a company with a history of selling location data?

newaccount74 5y ago
Yes. Tile was a somewhat popular trakcking app that used a crowd-sourced network to find their tags. In recent iOS versions Apple crippled the Tile app by adding a lot of privacy settings related to location and bluetooth tracking. Tile complained loudly when Apple released Airtags. Airtags are basically the same as the Tile trackers, except that the privacy settings that crippled the Tile app don't apply to Apple's app. It seems that Tile realised that they have no growth potential any more since they have no chance to compete against Apple's first party solution, so all they could do is try to sell out before all their users were gone.

renzo88 5y ago

I got rid of all of my tile devices a while ago due to privacy concerns. Airtags are a vast improvement, and it's sad that google hasn't shipped an equivalent.

sixothree 5y ago
You mention privacy concerns and wanting to use Google in the same paragraph.
- notRobot 5y ago
  Google is definitely no champion of privacy. But at least they don't sell your precise location data.
  - pueblito 5y ago
    Because they purchase it
    - blacksmith_tb 5y ago
      But they don't need to purchase it, they've already got it. I think the idea is they aren't willing to sell it as it's key to their business, and they'd rather not make a little more off selling it and risk their competitors leveraging it.
  - Tempest1981 5y ago
    Do they use it to target ads directly? Also check your cellular carrier's privacy settings, like CPNI. https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/verizon-is-tracking-iphone-users-by-default-theres-nothing-apple-can-do-how-to-turn-it-off.html https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/verizon-is-tracking-iphone-us...
    - judge2020 5y ago
      The privacy tradeoffs someone is willing to make will vary person-to-person. For many, Google only using precise location data for Ads and (probably) not shipping it off to random data brokers is a good tradeoff for powering and using the many products they offer - eg. YouTube, Maps, email/calendar, etc. Even for life360, it's very likely more than 50% of their userbase is fine with this given the features Tile and Life360 provide them.
  - HPsquared 5y ago
    Also, if Google already knows where I am at all times, then having them also handle some location tags would entail no further loss of privacy.
  - sixothree 5y ago
    First sentence says it all.
- renzo88 5y ago
  I didn't mention wanting to use google. I do think it's unfortunate that android users don't have a privacy protecting item tracking solution. Airtags are a wonderful product.
tyingq 5y ago
The tiles do have that audible ding feature that's nice for keys, like stuck in the couch, for example.
- hazebooth 5y ago
  AirTags also have an audible sound that can be played, I use this feature for when I lose my keys
  - tyingq 5y ago
    Ah, thanks. I had assumed they didn't based since there weren't any visible holes for a speaker.
    - dag11 5y ago
      It's actually a really cool design, the entire white half of the shell _is_ the speaker diaphragm!

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

Ooohhh ... That's gonna leave a mark ...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

NelsonMinar 5y ago

The marketplace for selling personal location data to third parties should be outlawed.

nly 5y ago
Why would the government do that? They're probably one of their best customers
- bun_at_work 5y ago
  Why would they buy the data when they can subpoena it?
  - lostapathy 5y ago
    It's easier to convince the budget department to pay for it than convince a judge you have a legal reason for it.
  - bhhaskin 5y ago
    Because they can buy it with out dealing with the legal system. Much easier to get a judge to sign off on it when there is no judge.
  - exhilaration 5y ago
    "Military intelligence buys location data instead of getting warrants" (10 months ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25896626 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25896626

tiahura 5y ago

“CEO Chris Hulls said the company has "no means to confirm or deny the accuracy" of whether Life360 is a large source of location data for the industry.” Buh-bye. AirTag it is then. To bad they don’t have a product to compete with the tile sticker.

throwaway4220 5y ago
Y'know if he just said yes, I think more people will use the product knowing what they are trading for a free product
anm89 5y ago
This is such an insane quote. The CEO is claiming he just has no idea how a core part of the business functions and that he wouldn't be able to figure out the answer even if he wanted to meaning literally not a single person in the entire organization understands the core business. That's a worse admission than saying you track your users in my mind. Also clearly a lie but just an insane response either way.

msla 5y ago

Some interesting information: https://web.archive.org/web/20201201220754/https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/d22i83/i_am_life360s_misunderstood_cofounder_and_ceo_ama/ https://web.archive.org/web/20201201220754/https://www.reddi... https://web.archive.org/web/20191225060351/https://www.reddit.com/r/Advice/comments/chysom/im_a_gay_college_student_and_my_family_is/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191225060351/https://www.reddi... https://web.archive.org/web/20210609133523/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/22/dont-leave-campus-parents-are-now-using-tracking-apps-watch-their-kids-college/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210609133523/https://www.washi...

HPsquared 5y ago

For anyone confused by the title: Tile is a company that makes Bluetooth tracking devices.

munchler 5y ago
And which was acquired by Life360 last month.

Tempest1981 5y ago

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29460074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29460074 (93 comments, 3 days ago)

monkeybutton 5y ago

The market for personal data in the US is grotesque. Go see what Acxiom and their partners will sell you.

kwertyoowiyop 5y ago

Don’t worry, it’s completely anonymized. The data could be from literally ANY of the people who spend the night at your home and work where you work!

qwertyuiop12 5y ago
I though that I was the only guy who think this
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
cameldrv 5y ago
Yep, and then they buy your anonymized credit card history. Then they notice that a certain location trace includes a particular Starbucks that corresponds to a purchase on the anonymous credit card. You get 3-4 of these coincidences, and you can be sure that they're the same person. Then they notice that when you open someone's app, you report a particular location, and you're also coming from a particular residential IP address. Around the same time, you access a website with a particular tracking cookie from the same IP. Voila, they've got location history, a good portion of your web browsing history, and purchase history. It's fairly easy to pin this down to a name at that point. This is not a theoretical thing, it's a multi billion dollar business.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]