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> does it by default Yet the Google blog post says > Location History is a Google account setting that is off by default See https://blog.google/technology/s
by kccqzy 4y ago
> does it by default
Yet the Google blog post says
> Location History is a Google account setting that is off by default
See https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/protecting-peoples-privacy-on-health-topics/ https://blog.google/technology/safety-security/protecting-pe...
FWIW I checked my own Google account. It was not enabled. And I have no recollection or plan to ever enable it.
It's saddening to see HN users (among all people) peddling falsehoods like this.
- car_analogy 4y ago> Location History is a Google account setting that is off by default Android still by default "shares" location with Google. That setting is merely to turn off storing that data on Google's side. Unless they get a warrant compelling them to keep it. And unless they are lying, again: https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-admits-tracking-users-location-even-when-setting-disabled/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-admits-tracking-users-l...
- smoldesu 4y agoApple still creates a relational database of iPhone user location by default too, I don't think this is a terribly surprising practice. I don't like either company doing it, but something tells me that they don't have a choice.
- ocdtrekkie 4y agoApple Maps is intentionally designed not to associate any data with Apple IDs, and to use random ethereal identifiers for parts of the route. So... source?
- smoldesu 4y agoFind My is enabled by default on pretty much all Apple devices, no?
- ocdtrekkie 4y agoI think it asks if you want to turn it on during the set up flow, but I don't remember. I know it's off on mine, I suppose if you want to use Find My they have to have your location, since that's it's purpose. Apple's Find My page seems to indicate it's end to end encrypted in many purposes, but lists all the ways it has to reveal your location to Apple to provide the feature.
- smoldesu 4y agoEnd-to-end encryption doesn't do much good when Apple (and by extension, the NSA) is on the other end. It's the same deal as Google, with different set dressing.
- kccqzy 4y agoSomeone really ought to sue Google so that during discovery Google will be compelled to speak the truth. The amount of confusion in this issue is immense. And tech publications like ZDNet is part of the problem. Conflating concepts like tracking vs collecting, not to mention the distinction between anonymous, pseudonymous, and tied-to-account tracking. In this particular article the title "tracking" clearly doesn't match the article's content where the Google spokesperson says "so that data was immediately discarded". Is Google lying about this? I think only a legal discovery will find out.
- ocdtrekkie 4y agoThis has already happened, and entered some glorious emails into the public record, like Google engineers stating they'd find their location history settings confusing, despite being basically an expert in the field.
- encryptluks2 4y agoThat isn't how lawsuits and discovery works. You can't just sue someone to go on a rogue fact-finding mission.
- Izkata 4y agoThis was changed in 2020; they used to keep it by default.
- TrainedMonkey 4y agoI have not looked at this for a while, but Google used to tie location search history which is valuable to users with location collection which is mostly valuable to Google. There is probably a perfectly good engineering explanation why, but it's hard to unsee abuse of market domination to track location data angle.
- chiefalchemist 4y agoGoogle's reputation on such things is far from spotless. That's not HN's fault.