It’s going to take serious amounts of data leaking before something is done to combat this.
Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds
11–20 of 181 posts
Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds
#12They don't, because I have an iPhone.
Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds
#13I like it how iOS displays this arrow when location services are or were used, and how one can see in "Privacy -> Location Services" a brief history of which app did what, and enable or disable location access at all per app.
That does nothing for IP based geo location though. Every rest request to modern cloud services gets geotagged and those tags can be surprisingly accurate in populated areas for people that use wifi.
>That does nothing for IP based geo location though
Of course, since ip "geolocation" is just ip data + location agregatted from ISPs. How can the OS maker "fight" this ?
Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds
#14I keep Location Services on iOS and GPS off at all times, unless I really need them. Even on iOS, I make sure that the only app that can use it is google maps. This works great for privacy, but I have issues with compass calibration.
Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds
#15iOS now forcing "While Using" option on all apps is the greatest thing ever. Before this, some apps where forcing the "Always" option on users. Uber and Waze come to mind. iOS also gives you a warning from time to time about apps using your location in the background. I think iOS right now has the best location management. --- People are surprised when seeing the Activity section in Google's account details, then fre…
> Also I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Google Maps now remembers searches you've made without location history or app activity tracking being active. This wasn't the case about a year ago, when I last tried it, a dark pattern of sorts. They probably changed the behavior being forced by the GDPR or something similar.
Location history wasn't ever needed for remembering searches, FWIW.
Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds
#16“We’re not doing anything not disclosed in our terms of service.” is rapidly becoming a no longer acceptable answer to consumers.
Don’t tell me a weather app needs to know my location all the time to give me the best weather info then sell my location to the highest bidder. Don’t tell me that buried in some 20 pages of leagalese in your Ts&Cs is some vague references that make this “legal.”
Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds
#17Any tips for avoiding location sharing on Android?
Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds
#18iOS now forcing "While Using" option on all apps is the greatest thing ever. Before this, some apps where forcing the "Always" option on users. Uber and Waze come to mind. iOS also gives you a warning from time to time about apps using your location in the background. I think iOS right now has the best location management. --- People are surprised when seeing the Activity section in Google's account details, then fre…
> Also I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Google Maps now remembers searches you've made without location history or app activity tracking being active. This wasn't the case about a year ago, when I last tried it, a dark pattern of sorts. They probably changed the behavior being forced by the GDPR or something similar. Location history wasn't ever needed for remembering searches, FWIW.
> Location history wasn't ever needed for remembering searches
It absolutely was. When I tapped on the search bar, there were no results and it told me to turn on location history.
Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds
#19[deleted]
Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
That does nothing for IP based geo location though. Every rest request to modern cloud services gets geotagged and those tags can be surprisingly accurate in populated areas for people that use wifi.
>That does nothing for IP based geo location though Of course, since ip "geolocation" is just ip data + location agregatted from ISPs. How can the OS maker "fight" this ?
Android requires apps request location permissions in order to access Wi-Fi IP info.