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Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

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Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be much more compelling if you went into the actual details of what they said to you vs what the truth actually was.

Unlock and commnd the google assistant via a bluetooth device. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't, sometimes it would unlock but then be unable to respond to subsequent commands. Then every few days, the feature would disable itself and stop working entirely (via voice or bluetooth) and have to be set up again. The first support person showed me how to clear the application cache, and then walked me throu…

It was discussed on HN a few days ago: the size of the company is inversely proportional to the quality of their support. After the company reaches a certain size, they can simply afford not to care. Also, in this case it makes more business sense for them. Therefore I prefer to deal with smaller companies.

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#143
But the funny part is Google keep your saved addresses. It only block the access.

If you have your home and/or work address set in Gmaps, and you disable all tracking in myactivity.google.com. The address will disappear and GMaps will invite you to reactive App and Web tracking. If you do it, your saved addresses will reappear. This is slightly dodgy.

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#144
post #126

Dark patterns seem to be becoming standard UX for Google now. I notice so much of it all over their products.

There is nothing dark about this, they are doing this in plain sight, there is very little people (who wants to use Google services*) can do about it. Even GDPR looks more and more toothless as days go by and nothing happens to obvious violators and it only covers European users of course.

Why should they not be able to control how they provide access to a product they develop and provide for free?

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#145
post #60

This! They used to allow you to, but now I don't save my home address and can't use a lot of Google features because they want you to enable activity tracking. WTF... why do I need all my activity to be tracked to use basic features?

My favorite part has been them pretending they no longer store your address, but when search results on the web places a pin they somehow manage to suggest it's an "x minute drive" from home... Which is it Google? Do you have the address saved or not? You forget where my address is only when it's inconvenient and coercive?

"Deleted the address, kept the coordinate pair" ;)

The true reason is probably a little less cheeky: keeping track of copies is hard. And here we end or digression into apologetics and return to criticism, ensuring correctness in keeping track of copies is surely not a very high priority.

Re: Google Maps won't let you save home address without allowing all Google tracking

#148
post #106
post #95

Why would you want to let them know where you live or work in the first place?

For me, it was so that when I'm somewhere I don't know, I can type 'home' into the maps search box and get directions. I turned off Google's activity tracking on iOS a couple of months ago, and only realised that Google Maps wasn't storing my home location when I used it for directions while stuck in traffic and it sent me to a nearby nursing home instead of my house. I ended up turning activity tracking back on, bec…

Have you tried HERE?
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