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Companies use smartphone locations to help advertisers and even hedge funds

nytimes.com

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

#71

Post by scarface74 »

izacus wrote: post #52
mariusmg wrote: post #13

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 ?

By introducing VPN I guess (I think Google offers one on their Fi service) - I don't seen any other solution, especially since telcos sell your data as well. It's just worth noting that flipping a switch in your OS might not do much in terms of location tracking.

And then unless you are hosting your own VPN, you have no way of knowing whether your VPN provider is selling your data...

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

#72

Post by jacquesm »

icebraining wrote: post #70
jacquesm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't turn it 'off', you can 'pause' it. That's a linguistic difference, sure, but it is quite telling that there is no respect at all for a users desires even in the language that is hardcoded in. It's as annoying as 'not now' for 'no' or '10 different things you should know about "x"', when you really should not.

Where is the "pause" wording?

https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols

All over the page.

Paused this, paused that.

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

#73

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

This seems hilariously sanctimonious and hypocritical from NYT.

For example, consider some of the navel-gazing bullshit projects they spend time on:

- https://investors.nytco.com/press/press-releases/press-relea...

Particular “Project Feels”

- https://digiday.com/media/project-feels-usa-today-espn-new-y...

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

#74

Post by lifeisstillgood »

i want my location history - for me. i just don't want it sold to third parties. if google will store it foe me and map my walks etc, great- but i don't want them to sell it or even use it much.

and i don't think that's a lot to ask. want me to pay for the 50cents storage costs ? sure.

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

#75

Post by TeMPOraL »

random878 wrote: post #51
code4tee wrote: post #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.”

I would respectfully disagree. It is not acceptable to roughly the amount of people (and I include myself) who make a deliberate and self conscious decision to oppose it. This is a small, small group. I have a phone with Replicant OS, which puts me within a niche group of an already niche group (those willing to install alternative OS and strip Google on their phone). In a wider computing sense - what percentage of H…

> It's the same with these apps.

Not really. I agree that people accept it to some degree (I'd say out of helplessness), but that doesn't mean regular people expect a random free weather app is going to pawn off all all their contacts list to random scoundrels.

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

#76

Post by ddeck »

kop316 wrote: post #55
bad_user wrote: 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…

I respectfully disagree on Google being entirely transparent about tracking location, especially if you run Android + Google Play Services. I have a tablet (Pixel C) that runs LineageOS + Google Play Services and a Phone (Nexus 5x) that runs LineageOS vanilla (no MicroG, no UnifiedNLP, no Google Play Services). Some things I have noted: - When you install MicroG/Google Play Services, they take over location services…

>if I disable location and then reenable it when I have moved more than 20-30 miles, the GPS has to reacquire the signal and can take up to 2 minutes (I also tried it when I drove several hundred miles, it took several minutes to reacquire). This is indicative of the GPS module being off totally. This was not so when it had Google Play Services on, it was able to reacquire my location extremely quickly, sometimes almost instantaneously even if I moved a long distance. I suspect that Google Play was still tracking my location even if I turned off location services

This is more likely access to network assisted GPS.

To know your location, the receiver needs the GPS ephemeris and almanac data (basically the status/location/trajectories of the GPS satellites). This is transmitted by the satellites themselves, but extremely slowly (50 bps with the entire navigation message taking 12.5 minutes)#.

To speed things up substantially (almost instant vs minutes), this info can be delivered over the network instead. I presume that in your case it was being provided over the network as part of the Play services.

# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_signals#Navigation_message

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

#77

Post by matt4077 »

eximius wrote: post #66
matty_makes wrote: post #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"

Think bigger: companies should be required to present their terms in plain English. Not all things need lawyers.

That doesn't make much senser. As soon as you wrtite a legal document in "plain English", whatever that may mean, you would find out how bad plain language is at capturing the endless nuances of actual life that need to be captured in contractual language.

I also don't actually find the current language of TOS prohibitively obfuscated, even though English isn't even my first language. The trouble is length far more than phrasing.

What could possibly work is to codify certain recurring segments, i. e. specify them once in a (complicated) law, then represent them in an understandable format, such as a visualisation. The "Nutritional Informations" come to mind.

Alternatively, a certification scheme grading different levels of data protection could work, such as it is currently used for organic food.

Or, you know, just outlaw the stuff that no sane person would ever accept unless forced to by the market converging on one, very low, standard.

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

#78

Post by kasey_junk »

afpx wrote: post #59

Hedge funds have been using location data to ‘predict’ corporate earnings for at least 5 years, that I know of. There’s also speculation that they use the data to identify locations of VIPs and where they’re going (by clustering activities of the VIP’s entourage). It’s unfortunate that news organizations as reputable and prominent as the NYT only get on these stories so late in the game. This information would have b…

Because the hedge funds are by definition not insiders? They are literally not using non-public corporate data at all.

Insider trading laws don’t exist to make sure there isn’t information assymetry, the market is all about that assymetry. Insider trading laws are about insiders stealing from other shareholders.

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

#79

Post by akovaski »

jacquesm wrote: post #72
icebraining wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the "pause" wording?

https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols All over the page. Paused this, paused that.

For those still wondering: the word "pause" appears in the pop-up information window when you toggle off one of the activities and appears next to "paused" activities.

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

#80

Post by bootaccount »

stabbles wrote: post #17

Any tips for avoiding location sharing on Android?

you can start with getting NetGuard - a no-root firewall that can be used to prevent apps from connecting to unnecessary domains. It's from the same developer who made xPrivacy.

If you can achieve root, you will have much greater controls over privacy. Unfortunately, it seems cellphone manufacturers are moving away from giving users control over their devices.

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