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Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds

nytimes.com

31–40 of 181 posts

Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds

#31
What is the correct way to regulate this?

The problem is that, from small business to mammoth company, there is no codified, unified, agreed upon manifesto when it comes to handling data at any level. A "Constitution" of sorts that explains the rights and / or wrongs of the data usage of the average user. Somewhere where a user can look at a document, see which company falls where on the spectrum, decide if they are comfortable with the sharing of that, and actively signs off on it. As an addendum, it's also important to think, while my for example, email data might be shared, it will enable certain benefits that I sign off on like Google providing me flight details, etc., but it comes at what expense.

You'd get a wide spectrum of those who couldn't care less to those who are tin-foiled, but no matter where you fall on this spectrum, you'd at least know which software does what. If that manifesto-like document is broken, consequences would be maintained.

Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds

#32
post #5
post #4

Why is selling this data not illegal and harshly prosecuted? You'd expect to find this data being stolen by trojans and sold for bitcoin by anonymous actors on blackhat sites, not by registered companies with offices and employees.

It hasn't yet been used to expose a congressman? The US lacks GDPR-style general privacy law, but there is a very specific one for video rental records passed specifically as a result of exposure of Robert Bork: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act

A more generous interpretation, that does not require buying into the generic, unactionable cynicism that everyone is corrupt, is simply that new laws require neat, easily comprehensible and emotional stories to be enacted.

As examples I would cite federal hate crime legislation, enacted after a particularly abhorrent lynching of a gay teenager IIRC. Or the current change of approach to Saudi Arabia’s ruling sadists: of course their industrial slaughter and engineered starvation of children in Yemen is the far larger crime, but the smoking bone saw of Istanbul just grips us far more viscerally.

Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds

#33

It’s going to take serious amounts of data leaking before something is done to combat this.

A couple of politicians having their affairs outed would do it.

rolls up sleeves alright, folks, let's get to it

Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds

#34
Someone should create an app that translates a companies T&C into layman terms with simple stuff like "they track your location", "sell your usage data", etc. Just need a team of lawyers to interpret them, and a nice web site.

Call it something like AppSideEffects.com "Things that may be harmful when using these apps/web sites"

Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds

#35
post #5
post #4

Why is selling this data not illegal and harshly prosecuted? You'd expect to find this data being stolen by trojans and sold for bitcoin by anonymous actors on blackhat sites, not by registered companies with offices and employees.

It hasn't yet been used to expose a congressman? The US lacks GDPR-style general privacy law, but there is a very specific one for video rental records passed specifically as a result of exposure of Robert Bork: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act

[deleted]

Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds

#36
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Aren’t they able to get the ip just by connecting to any server?

Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds

#37
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Nonetheless, I actually don’t enjoy seeing my search history accumulate on my device. Half of my searches are just spell checks anyway, the next 40% are just wikipedia shortcuts. Probably less than one in ten searches are genuine queries, to scour for a real result. The number is small enough that I pretty much can directly remember the thing I was thinking about, and why I searched for it. I don’t even want my devic…

This is about location search history in Google Maps, though, not general search history. Personally, I rarely need the latter but I find the former very useful.

Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds

#38

Someone should create an app that translates a companies T&C into layman terms with simple stuff like "they track your location", "sell your usage data", etc. Just need a team of lawyers to interpret them, and a nice web site. Call it something like AppSideEffects.com "Things that may be harmful when using these apps/web sites"

Terms Of Service; Didn't Read is very close to what you're looking for.

https://tosdr.org

Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds

#39
post #15
post #9

iOS 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.

[deleted]

Re: Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds

#40
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

On iOS, location history absolutely was not required for this. Either its different on android google maps, or you're conflating web and app activity with location history.
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