5 ms·

Most likely: actually using the geolocation is an extremely niche usecase for images uploaded from mobile browsers. I’d wager 99.9% of the users didn’t realize

Most likely: actually using the geolocation is an extremely niche usecase for images uploaded from mobile browsers. I’d wager 99.9% of the users didn’t realize that they are effectively sending their live GPS coords to a random website when taking a photo. But yes, a prop to the input tag ’includeLocation’ which would then give the user some popup confirmation prompt would have been nice

embedding-shape 6mo ago
> I’d wager 99.9% of the users didn’t realize that they are effectively sending their live GPS coords to a random website when taking a photo. I'd wager 90% of the photos on Google Maps associated with various listings don't actually know their photos are in public. I keep coming across selfies and other photos that look very personal, but somehow someone uploaded to Google Maps, the photo is next to a store or something and Google somehow linked them together, probably by EXIF.
- eru 6mo ago
  Google prompts you in Google Maps if you want to upload your picture to Maps. I sometimes do that for random pictures, even like selfies, which I don't mind popping up there.
  - PokemonNoGo 6mo ago
    Wait... You post selfies on Google Maps? The thought never crossed my mind. What would the purpose be? Sorry I'm probably thick...
    - PepperdineG 6mo ago
      I can say for me that after my father died I posted pictures of him at some of his favorite places or from favorite trips.
    - petu 6mo ago
      Google Maps app sees that you took photo near POI and later in the day asks you in notification if you want to share it on maps. You review the photo and go "lol, sure". At least for me that doesn't even feel like posting due to how frictionless it is and that it's about natural discoverability (someone has to click that POI and scroll through photos to find it).
      - eru 6mo ago
        About the latter: that's why Google Maps is my favourite social medium. It's hyper-local.
    - ClikeX 6mo ago
      For that sweet local guide score.
      - embedding-shape 6mo ago
        I remember arriving in Lisbon, leaving a favorable review for a restaurant because they were so nice to us, and Google sending me a notification that I'm now a local guide for Lisbon. What exactly does that mean though? Is there any benefits to it? All I see is a badge/label, that's it?
        gbear605 6mo ago
        There are some benefits that definitely used to exist, and maybe still exist, like early access to new features and additional Google Drive storage. But in practice today, the only real benefit is the badge.
      - kelseydh 6mo ago
        If you accrue a high score, Google should give you a plaque like they give to Youtubers with many subscribers.
      - spaqin 6mo ago
        I really don't know why anyone would try hard to get that. On Chinese map app (Amap) at least you can get a ride hailing coupon, for a nice taxi discount.
    - Barbing 6mo ago
      I will share a thread from someone asking where was their congratulatory email that they've come to expect from Google Maps. https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t/e-mail-from-google-congratulating-me-on-reaching-5-million-views/408684 https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t/e-mail-from-google-cong...
      - PokemonNoGo 6mo ago
        Oh... I... don't know what to say about that post. How foreign? :| Thanks for the insight!
  - sixothree 6mo ago
    I had a popup on my iPhone one day "You were in City Park last weekend, would you like to share those photos?". I stopped allowing google access to my photos after that. A little late though, they had apparently scraped all of my data already.
    - setopt 6mo ago
      I had a similar moment a few years ago. That Google Maps pop-up was what caused me to first switch to de-googled Android, and once that turned out to be a hassle after a couple of years, switch to an iPhone without Google stuff. (On Android, Google is a location provider, so blocking their access is much harder.)
      - ankaz 6mo ago
        [dead]
      - ThePowerOfFuet 6mo ago
        >On Android, Google is a location provider, so blocking their access is much harder. https://grapheneos.org/features#network-location https://grapheneos.org/features#network-location Their approach encompasses GNSS location, too. Nothing Google required.
        bornfreddy 6mo ago
        True. Sidenote: they are still however push notifications provider, so good luck getting rid of them completely (unless you're fine with not getting the notifications). MicroG is awesome wrt. that as you can turn it on/off as you wish, and it just works. GrapheneOS however only supports Google services in sandbox, but the notifications work sporadically IME (maybe because I keep turning them off and on... not sure). So... Pick your poison.
    - dylan604 6mo ago
      I don't even have G-apps on my phone. They work fine in a browser, until they don't. I was trying to use streetview yesterday and it would not open in the browser and kept trying to redirect me to the app store. So now they are deliberately borking their webapps to punish those not using native apps.
- kccqzy 6mo ago
  I have friends that do that and it’s intentional. Had a good time at a store or restaurant? Take a selfie and upload to Google Maps. Also take a selfie video and upload to Instagram stories. It’s a way of life that defaults to more sharing.
- harvey9 6mo ago
  I suspect there used to be a flow which was far too easy to share directly to Google maps. I was browsing the map once and found a picture of a credit card in a room in a hotel. I guess the guy intended to send it to his PA or something.
  - Barbing 6mo ago
    Like IMG_0001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42314547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42314547
Shalomboy 6mo ago
My first eye-opening moment working within the government was with team of herpetologists at the state conservation agency. They had a pretty slick public education campaign around protecting Gopher Tortoise habitats and a grand call-to-action "let the agency know where and when they see their nests". The whole thing fell apart because they were getting tons of earnestly-submitted junk data from earnestly-engaged citizens. Turns out the application was just a form that they asked people to fill out. I suggested they ask for user photos and scrape the EXIF data or ask them to opt-into sending their location and got laughed out of the room. Turns out that they discovered users immediately nope out of government websites that ask for their location! What a shame.
- MostlyStable 6mo ago
  A colleague of mine tried doing this after a large sturgeon die off in the San Francisco Bay a few years ago. Citizens were asked to upload photos of dead sturgeon washed up on beaches. They actually got pretty good data (sturgeon are very easily identifiable) and lots of participation, but the location data ending up being largely useless because it was fuzzed (I think by iOS?) to a large enough degree to no longer be helpful, and the fields for manual coordinate entry had very low usage
  - Shalomboy 6mo ago
    Oh that's fascinating. I hadn't considered OS-level fuzzing as a hurdle until now. I'm an pixel guy and typically I get decently-accurate location heatmaps in the Photos app when I search by location; I wonder how we would have handled this. HABs are so difficult, they break my heart.
  - Barbing 6mo ago
    How does iOS decide whether to default to including location? I coulda sworn, even in earlier versions of iOS 26, if you told it not to include location when sending a photo once then it would not include it by default the next time. Also I thought that when you uploaded a photo from your camera roll to the web I thought it defaulted to no location. And that seems to have changed too. (Of course, you can still tap a button to withhold location EXIF.)
freehorse 6mo ago
> actually using the geolocation is an extremely niche usecase for images uploaded from mobile browsers Is it only for mobile browsers? The article makes it sound [0] as if it is a general thing, even when sharing through bluetooth, and that only copying the image via usb connection allows you to keep geolocation in exif. Not sure what happens when you upload to native apps, eg to some cloud storage app (photo specific or not). I definitely want my location to stay when I make a cloud backup of my photos with an app intended for that. [0] Quote: >> Using a "Progressive Web App" doesn't work either. So, can users transfer their photos via Bluetooth or QuickShare? No. That's now broken as well. You can't even directly share via email without the location being stripped away. Literally the only way to get a photo with geolocation intact is to plug in a USB cable, copy the photo to your computer, and then upload it via a desktop web browser?
- Ajedi32 6mo ago
  I'm guessing they changed the default behavior from "include metadata" to "strip metadata" so now any app that wants metadata has to request it explicitly, and any older apps which don't know how to make such a request are simply unable to get location data? Seems like this is possibly related to the ACCESS_MEDIA_LOCATION permission[1], and Google's recent efforts to force applications to migrate to the scoped storage API. See: https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/media#location-info-photos https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/m... Probably someone more versed in Android's APIs could give a better explanation. [1]: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.permission#ACCESS_MEDIA_LOCATION https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.per...
  - rickdeckard 6mo ago
    Yes, it's about that permission. It's not even that recent, it has been implemented since Android 10. I think it's summarized quite well here [0]: If your app targets Android 10 (API level 29) or higher and needs to retrieve unredacted EXIF metadata from photos, you need to declare the ACCESS_MEDIA_LOCATION permission in your app's manifest, then request this permission at runtime. So if the app-developer didn't take explicit effort to request this data (and the user-permission for it), his app will not receive it. [0] https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/media#media-location-permission https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/m...
isodev 6mo ago
> extremely niche usecase Phones are computers though, it’s not up to Google or Apple to decide what’s a good use case for my own pictures.
- jen20 6mo ago
  It is absolutely Apple's job to protect people who do not have the desire or capacity to decide what is a good use case or not from predators (yes, the ad industry is 100% predatory). The whole reason I and my entire family have iPhones is because there are entire classes of scams and scum that you don't have to be constantly vigilant against. If it didn't do that, I wouldn't buy them.
- ieie3366 6mo ago
  You are not the target audience :)
  - kelnos 6mo ago
    Then I'm not the target audience for any mobile OS, given the restrictions of Google's and Apple's platforms, not to mention the inadequacy (for me) of the features sets for any of the niche open source alternatives. While I expect I'm not in the majority, I'm certainly far from unique. That's not a good position to be in; this duopoly we've allowed to prosper needs to go.
kristopolous 6mo ago
I want the location on every time, without exception. The current behavior is exactly what I wanted. These "all users are imbeciles that need our protection" design pattern needs to die a swift death. It's maddening, We're constantly taking kitchen knives and replacing them with the colorful plastic toddler version and still have the same cutting tasks.
- dylan604 6mo ago
  I was a fan of the idea that the OS would strip location data on any upload via web/app, but would preserve the data when doing specific types of transfers deemed not via third party like direct transfer to computer or AirDrop
  - kristopolous 6mo ago
    Upload file doesn't mean mutate file. No. Upload file means upload file. If you want to mutate the file, mutate the file. When tools assume you're stupid and insert silent surprises unrelated to the task they no longer deserve the title "tool" because they are fundamentally doing other things.
    - raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
      Most people have no idea when they upload a “photo” they are also letting anyone know their “location”. On iOS at least, from the browser, you specifically choose whether you want to upload a file from the Files app (that lets you upload files from iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox or any other storage type service you have installed) or a photo.
      - kristopolous 6mo ago
        These "all users are imbeciles that need our protection" design pattern needs to die a swift death.
        6mo ago
shevy-java 6mo ago
On that point I would agree - I never used that. But Google also lied why it wanted to destroy ublock origin. It was clear to everyone that they did it because people can break away from ads infiltrating their computers. I can't use the modern www anymore without general content blocker; ublock lite is good but nowhere as useful as ublock origin was. I notice this when I compare e. g. firefox with default chrome. So many websites have a totally broken UI. With ublock origin not only can I get rid of popups or ads but also horrible UI choices. I use that on so many websites to simplify them.
- drnick1 6mo ago
  Use IronFox or Fennec, preferably on GrapheneOS. You won't have freedom on Google or Apple controlled devices. I have not seen an ad in years.
  - raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
    Well Apple has had ad blocking extensions for over a decade and full extension support for a few years
    - drnick1 6mo ago
      Unfortunately, this won't protect you from Apple itself.
      - raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
        Why do I need protection from Apple if my goal is not to deal with ads? Unless you are making the (very valid) point that you still have to deal with ads in the App Store and soon Apple Maps.
ryandrake 6mo ago
I'm gonna die on this hill, but silently attaching very sensitive PII (including exact lat/lon) to photos has always been a terrible anti-feature. One of those "WTF were they actually thinking?" terrible anti-features. Imagine if you created a word document and Microsoft silently attached your home address to them as metadata. Awful and totally unexpected to the vast majority of users.
- nullfield 6mo ago
  As someone else mentioned it IS entirely problematic how advertisers/others abuse people, and I get WHY location gets stripped. I still think it's abusive to take away the user's choice. (and why do they have to strip almost ALL EXIF data, instead of just location? [yes, yes, fingerprinting, but there are LOTS of iPhone {NUMBER} whatever out there]) It really just needs to be clearly communicated, opt-in at attach time. Probably with a severely hidden, developer-screen level, or BIG WARNING in security settings to totally disable stripping. I assume most people won't want it, _usually_, so when adding photos just have it be a double-opt in - you have to both hit an extra button during attachment, then select "include location" or "include location and metadata", then a modal warning/confirmation. Something like: "Confirm including photo location? This will permit the recipient to see where the pictures were taken. <yes/no>"
  - inhumantsar 6mo ago
    I agree with you that, when sharing, location should be stripped by default with an option to include it. After seeing this post I checked my recent photos. I'm using a Pixel 6 Pro with the most recent android release and the stock camera app. None of my recent photos have location in the EXIF, even locally, and there's no option to turn it on. It's particularly galling that the Camera app still wants location permissions and if you view a photo in the Google Photos app, the location is still there. Google can have those exact locations, but no one, not even the user, can. It's abusive as hell.
    - ChoGGi 6mo ago
      > None of my recent photos have location in the EXIF, even locally, and there's no option to turn it on. You don't have this option? https://imgur.com/a/piFLtfD https://imgur.com/a/piFLtfD

embedding-shape 6mo ago

> I’d wager 99.9% of the users didn’t realize that they are effectively sending their live GPS coords to a random website when taking a photo. I'd wager 90% of the photos on Google Maps associated with various listings don't actually know their photos are in public. I keep coming across selfies and other photos that look very personal, but somehow someone uploaded to Google Maps, the photo is next to a store or something and Google somehow linked them together, probably by EXIF.

eru 6mo ago
Google prompts you in Google Maps if you want to upload your picture to Maps. I sometimes do that for random pictures, even like selfies, which I don't mind popping up there.
- PokemonNoGo 6mo ago
  Wait... You post selfies on Google Maps? The thought never crossed my mind. What would the purpose be? Sorry I'm probably thick...
  - PepperdineG 6mo ago
    I can say for me that after my father died I posted pictures of him at some of his favorite places or from favorite trips.
  - petu 6mo ago
    Google Maps app sees that you took photo near POI and later in the day asks you in notification if you want to share it on maps. You review the photo and go "lol, sure". At least for me that doesn't even feel like posting due to how frictionless it is and that it's about natural discoverability (someone has to click that POI and scroll through photos to find it).
    - eru 6mo ago
      About the latter: that's why Google Maps is my favourite social medium. It's hyper-local.
  - ClikeX 6mo ago
    For that sweet local guide score.
    - embedding-shape 6mo ago
      I remember arriving in Lisbon, leaving a favorable review for a restaurant because they were so nice to us, and Google sending me a notification that I'm now a local guide for Lisbon. What exactly does that mean though? Is there any benefits to it? All I see is a badge/label, that's it?
      - gbear605 6mo ago
        There are some benefits that definitely used to exist, and maybe still exist, like early access to new features and additional Google Drive storage. But in practice today, the only real benefit is the badge.
    - kelseydh 6mo ago
      If you accrue a high score, Google should give you a plaque like they give to Youtubers with many subscribers.
    - spaqin 6mo ago
      I really don't know why anyone would try hard to get that. On Chinese map app (Amap) at least you can get a ride hailing coupon, for a nice taxi discount.
  - Barbing 6mo ago
    I will share a thread from someone asking where was their congratulatory email that they've come to expect from Google Maps. https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t/e-mail-from-google-congratulating-me-on-reaching-5-million-views/408684 https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t/e-mail-from-google-cong...
    - PokemonNoGo 6mo ago
      Oh... I... don't know what to say about that post. How foreign? :| Thanks for the insight!
- sixothree 6mo ago
  I had a popup on my iPhone one day "You were in City Park last weekend, would you like to share those photos?". I stopped allowing google access to my photos after that. A little late though, they had apparently scraped all of my data already.
  - setopt 6mo ago
    I had a similar moment a few years ago. That Google Maps pop-up was what caused me to first switch to de-googled Android, and once that turned out to be a hassle after a couple of years, switch to an iPhone without Google stuff. (On Android, Google is a location provider, so blocking their access is much harder.)
    - ankaz 6mo ago
      [dead]
    - ThePowerOfFuet 6mo ago
      >On Android, Google is a location provider, so blocking their access is much harder. https://grapheneos.org/features#network-location https://grapheneos.org/features#network-location Their approach encompasses GNSS location, too. Nothing Google required.
      - bornfreddy 6mo ago
        True. Sidenote: they are still however push notifications provider, so good luck getting rid of them completely (unless you're fine with not getting the notifications). MicroG is awesome wrt. that as you can turn it on/off as you wish, and it just works. GrapheneOS however only supports Google services in sandbox, but the notifications work sporadically IME (maybe because I keep turning them off and on... not sure). So... Pick your poison.
  - dylan604 6mo ago
    I don't even have G-apps on my phone. They work fine in a browser, until they don't. I was trying to use streetview yesterday and it would not open in the browser and kept trying to redirect me to the app store. So now they are deliberately borking their webapps to punish those not using native apps.
kccqzy 6mo ago
I have friends that do that and it’s intentional. Had a good time at a store or restaurant? Take a selfie and upload to Google Maps. Also take a selfie video and upload to Instagram stories. It’s a way of life that defaults to more sharing.
harvey9 6mo ago
I suspect there used to be a flow which was far too easy to share directly to Google maps. I was browsing the map once and found a picture of a credit card in a room in a hotel. I guess the guy intended to send it to his PA or something.
- Barbing 6mo ago
  Like IMG_0001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42314547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42314547

Shalomboy 6mo ago

My first eye-opening moment working within the government was with team of herpetologists at the state conservation agency. They had a pretty slick public education campaign around protecting Gopher Tortoise habitats and a grand call-to-action "let the agency know where and when they see their nests". The whole thing fell apart because they were getting tons of earnestly-submitted junk data from earnestly-engaged citizens. Turns out the application was just a form that they asked people to fill out. I suggested they ask for user photos and scrape the EXIF data or ask them to opt-into sending their location and got laughed out of the room. Turns out that they discovered users immediately nope out of government websites that ask for their location! What a shame.

MostlyStable 6mo ago
A colleague of mine tried doing this after a large sturgeon die off in the San Francisco Bay a few years ago. Citizens were asked to upload photos of dead sturgeon washed up on beaches. They actually got pretty good data (sturgeon are very easily identifiable) and lots of participation, but the location data ending up being largely useless because it was fuzzed (I think by iOS?) to a large enough degree to no longer be helpful, and the fields for manual coordinate entry had very low usage
- Shalomboy 6mo ago
  Oh that's fascinating. I hadn't considered OS-level fuzzing as a hurdle until now. I'm an pixel guy and typically I get decently-accurate location heatmaps in the Photos app when I search by location; I wonder how we would have handled this. HABs are so difficult, they break my heart.
- Barbing 6mo ago
  How does iOS decide whether to default to including location? I coulda sworn, even in earlier versions of iOS 26, if you told it not to include location when sending a photo once then it would not include it by default the next time. Also I thought that when you uploaded a photo from your camera roll to the web I thought it defaulted to no location. And that seems to have changed too. (Of course, you can still tap a button to withhold location EXIF.)

freehorse 6mo ago

> actually using the geolocation is an extremely niche usecase for images uploaded from mobile browsers Is it only for mobile browsers? The article makes it sound [0] as if it is a general thing, even when sharing through bluetooth, and that only copying the image via usb connection allows you to keep geolocation in exif. Not sure what happens when you upload to native apps, eg to some cloud storage app (photo specific or not). I definitely want my location to stay when I make a cloud backup of my photos with an app intended for that. [0] Quote: >> Using a "Progressive Web App" doesn't work either. So, can users transfer their photos via Bluetooth or QuickShare? No. That's now broken as well. You can't even directly share via email without the location being stripped away. Literally the only way to get a photo with geolocation intact is to plug in a USB cable, copy the photo to your computer, and then upload it via a desktop web browser?

Ajedi32 6mo ago
I'm guessing they changed the default behavior from "include metadata" to "strip metadata" so now any app that wants metadata has to request it explicitly, and any older apps which don't know how to make such a request are simply unable to get location data? Seems like this is possibly related to the ACCESS_MEDIA_LOCATION permission[1], and Google's recent efforts to force applications to migrate to the scoped storage API. See: https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/media#location-info-photos https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/m... Probably someone more versed in Android's APIs could give a better explanation. [1]: https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.permission#ACCESS_MEDIA_LOCATION https://developer.android.com/reference/android/Manifest.per...
- rickdeckard 6mo ago
  Yes, it's about that permission. It's not even that recent, it has been implemented since Android 10. I think it's summarized quite well here [0]: If your app targets Android 10 (API level 29) or higher and needs to retrieve unredacted EXIF metadata from photos, you need to declare the ACCESS_MEDIA_LOCATION permission in your app's manifest, then request this permission at runtime. So if the app-developer didn't take explicit effort to request this data (and the user-permission for it), his app will not receive it. [0] https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/media#media-location-permission https://developer.android.com/training/data-storage/shared/m...

isodev 6mo ago

> extremely niche usecase Phones are computers though, it’s not up to Google or Apple to decide what’s a good use case for my own pictures.

jen20 6mo ago
It is absolutely Apple's job to protect people who do not have the desire or capacity to decide what is a good use case or not from predators (yes, the ad industry is 100% predatory). The whole reason I and my entire family have iPhones is because there are entire classes of scams and scum that you don't have to be constantly vigilant against. If it didn't do that, I wouldn't buy them.
ieie3366 6mo ago
You are not the target audience :)
- kelnos 6mo ago
  Then I'm not the target audience for any mobile OS, given the restrictions of Google's and Apple's platforms, not to mention the inadequacy (for me) of the features sets for any of the niche open source alternatives. While I expect I'm not in the majority, I'm certainly far from unique. That's not a good position to be in; this duopoly we've allowed to prosper needs to go.

kristopolous 6mo ago

I want the location on every time, without exception. The current behavior is exactly what I wanted. These "all users are imbeciles that need our protection" design pattern needs to die a swift death. It's maddening, We're constantly taking kitchen knives and replacing them with the colorful plastic toddler version and still have the same cutting tasks.

dylan604 6mo ago
I was a fan of the idea that the OS would strip location data on any upload via web/app, but would preserve the data when doing specific types of transfers deemed not via third party like direct transfer to computer or AirDrop
- kristopolous 6mo ago
  Upload file doesn't mean mutate file. No. Upload file means upload file. If you want to mutate the file, mutate the file. When tools assume you're stupid and insert silent surprises unrelated to the task they no longer deserve the title "tool" because they are fundamentally doing other things.
  - raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
    Most people have no idea when they upload a “photo” they are also letting anyone know their “location”. On iOS at least, from the browser, you specifically choose whether you want to upload a file from the Files app (that lets you upload files from iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox or any other storage type service you have installed) or a photo.
    - kristopolous 6mo ago
      These "all users are imbeciles that need our protection" design pattern needs to die a swift death.
      - 6mo ago

shevy-java 6mo ago

On that point I would agree - I never used that. But Google also lied why it wanted to destroy ublock origin. It was clear to everyone that they did it because people can break away from ads infiltrating their computers. I can't use the modern www anymore without general content blocker; ublock lite is good but nowhere as useful as ublock origin was. I notice this when I compare e. g. firefox with default chrome. So many websites have a totally broken UI. With ublock origin not only can I get rid of popups or ads but also horrible UI choices. I use that on so many websites to simplify them.

drnick1 6mo ago
Use IronFox or Fennec, preferably on GrapheneOS. You won't have freedom on Google or Apple controlled devices. I have not seen an ad in years.
- raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
  Well Apple has had ad blocking extensions for over a decade and full extension support for a few years
  - drnick1 6mo ago
    Unfortunately, this won't protect you from Apple itself.
    - raw_anon_1111 6mo ago
      Why do I need protection from Apple if my goal is not to deal with ads? Unless you are making the (very valid) point that you still have to deal with ads in the App Store and soon Apple Maps.

ryandrake 6mo ago

I'm gonna die on this hill, but silently attaching very sensitive PII (including exact lat/lon) to photos has always been a terrible anti-feature. One of those "WTF were they actually thinking?" terrible anti-features. Imagine if you created a word document and Microsoft silently attached your home address to them as metadata. Awful and totally unexpected to the vast majority of users.

nullfield 6mo ago
As someone else mentioned it IS entirely problematic how advertisers/others abuse people, and I get WHY location gets stripped. I still think it's abusive to take away the user's choice. (and why do they have to strip almost ALL EXIF data, instead of just location? [yes, yes, fingerprinting, but there are LOTS of iPhone {NUMBER} whatever out there]) It really just needs to be clearly communicated, opt-in at attach time. Probably with a severely hidden, developer-screen level, or BIG WARNING in security settings to totally disable stripping. I assume most people won't want it, _usually_, so when adding photos just have it be a double-opt in - you have to both hit an extra button during attachment, then select "include location" or "include location and metadata", then a modal warning/confirmation. Something like: "Confirm including photo location? This will permit the recipient to see where the pictures were taken. <yes/no>"
- inhumantsar 6mo ago
  I agree with you that, when sharing, location should be stripped by default with an option to include it. After seeing this post I checked my recent photos. I'm using a Pixel 6 Pro with the most recent android release and the stock camera app. None of my recent photos have location in the EXIF, even locally, and there's no option to turn it on. It's particularly galling that the Camera app still wants location permissions and if you view a photo in the Google Photos app, the location is still there. Google can have those exact locations, but no one, not even the user, can. It's abusive as hell.
  - ChoGGi 6mo ago
    > None of my recent photos have location in the EXIF, even locally, and there's no option to turn it on. You don't have this option? https://imgur.com/a/piFLtfD https://imgur.com/a/piFLtfD