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Fearing data privacy issues, Google cuts some Android phone data for carriers

reuters.com

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Re: Fearing data privacy issues, Google cuts some Android phone data for carriers

#11

Post by 75dvtwin »

Seems like one of the decisions a consumer should make, and not phone OS provider in this case.

My overall sentiment is that any actively enforced regulation, is often used as a weapon against competitors, or as a weapon to racketeer money from a business.

(whether it is privacy, patent enforcement, copy right enforcement, nondiscrimination and so on).

Therefore, what's missing, generally, is the complimentary framework to to make sure that actively enforced policies are not abused.

I do not know how exactly those complimentary no-abuse laws would work, but I think they have to be part-and-parcel of every legislation, and should be voted for at the same time.

Without it, we do not have a truly 'fair competition and instead business compete on whose team of lawyers is more creative and more aggressive.

Re: Fearing data privacy issues, Google cuts some Android phone data for carriers

#12

Post by liability »

PeterisP wrote: post #8
makomk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This effectively provided carriers with aggregated, deidentified information about people's locations. It's easy to see from the problems with things like Strava's heatmaps just how much of a privacy headache this could be and how hard it would be to ensure that nothing sensitive leaked out. Also, even if they did people are sensitive enough about privacy that with the right spin it could be turned into a muck-raking…

If you're a carrier then you can do coarse-grained detection of everyone's location by timing-based triangulation - modern cell phone standards require knowing your distance from the cell tower (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timing_advance for example) so it's measured (and thus can be recorded if the carrier wants) as part of every keepalive connection and if you're in range for more than one tower, which is alm…

I wager that coarse-grain location data is not so coarse these days. My carrier seems to know the instant I crossed a border for instance, sending me a text message about it within seconds. Years ago people used to get nailed with roaming charges simply because they were near a border and happened to accidentally get connected to a tower across the border, but that's not happening anymore. Their system knows enough about your location to know if you are across the border or just near it.

Re: Fearing data privacy issues, Google cuts some Android phone data for carriers

#13

Post by lugg »

75dvtwin wrote: post #11

Seems like one of the decisions a consumer should make, and not phone OS provider in this case. My overall sentiment is that any actively enforced regulation, is often used as a weapon against competitors, or as a weapon to racketeer money from a business. (whether it is privacy, patent enforcement, copy right enforcement, nondiscrimination and so on). Therefore, what's missing, generally, is the complimentary framew…

We don't have truly fair competition anyway.

Giving this right to consumers is equal to taking it away. Carriers will simply make you sign a waiver on signup that lets them take whatever they want anyway.

You may think that market competition will weed those carriers out by my dollars voting elsewhere but I'm pretty sure it won't, at least not in my lifetime, if ever, given how many people gladly sign over not only their data but my data as well to places like Facebook every day.

Re: Fearing data privacy issues, Google cuts some Android phone data for carriers

#14

Post by cameronbrown »

lugg wrote: post #13
75dvtwin wrote: post #11

Seems like one of the decisions a consumer should make, and not phone OS provider in this case. My overall sentiment is that any actively enforced regulation, is often used as a weapon against competitors, or as a weapon to racketeer money from a business. (whether it is privacy, patent enforcement, copy right enforcement, nondiscrimination and so on). Therefore, what's missing, generally, is the complimentary framew…

We don't have truly fair competition anyway. Giving this right to consumers is equal to taking it away. Carriers will simply make you sign a waiver on signup that lets them take whatever they want anyway. You may think that market competition will weed those carriers out by my dollars voting elsewhere but I'm pretty sure it won't, at least not in my lifetime, if ever, given how many people gladly sign over not only t…

At least people choose to give FB/Google their data. Carriers have no right to it.

Re: Fearing data privacy issues, Google cuts some Android phone data for carriers

#15

Post by blackoil »

cameronbrown wrote: post #14
lugg wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't have truly fair competition anyway. Giving this right to consumers is equal to taking it away. Carriers will simply make you sign a waiver on signup that lets them take whatever they want anyway. You may think that market competition will weed those carriers out by my dollars voting elsewhere but I'm pretty sure it won't, at least not in my lifetime, if ever, given how many people gladly sign over not only t…

At least people choose to give FB/Google their data. Carriers have no right to it.

Google is near monopoly on <500usd mobiles and maps. So it is difficult for users to exercise the right to not use them.

Re: Fearing data privacy issues, Google cuts some Android phone data for carriers

#16

Post by pdkl95 »

liability wrote: post #12
PeterisP wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a carrier then you can do coarse-grained detection of everyone's location by timing-based triangulation - modern cell phone standards require knowing your distance from the cell tower (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timing_advance for example) so it's measured (and thus can be recorded if the carrier wants) as part of every keepalive connection and if you're in range for more than one tower, which is alm…

I wager that coarse-grain location data is not so coarse these days. My carrier seems to know the instant I crossed a border for instance, sending me a text message about it within seconds. Years ago people used to get nailed with roaming charges simply because they were near a border and happened to accidentally get connected to a tower across the border, but that's not happening anymore. Their system knows enough a…

Coarse-grain location data becomes very revealing when you have enough timestamped data points. The NSA's CO-TRAVELER[1] program only needs to watch which towers cell phones use to build a very accurate map of each phone's pattern-of-life (where does a phone regularly travel/idle) and social interaction network (e.g. which phones travel/idle together).

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/world/how-the-nsa...

Re: Fearing data privacy issues, Google cuts some Android phone data for carriers

#17

Post by takdirm »

Google should protect consumer privacy data. Because every consumer certainly does not want his privacy data to be misused by any party. Therefore, the steps taken by Google in my opinion are very appropriate. That way, we as customers can feel safe.

https://klikfix.com/assets/images/v3/desktop/landing-heroban...

Re: Fearing data privacy issues, Google cuts some Android phone data for carriers

#18

Post by natch »

Maybe Google is realizing that the carriers' monetization of your personal data is turning the carriers, even more than before, into Google's competitors.

Google wants to keep your data for themselves.

In this light, the wording of the headline is a nice PR win for Google. Makes me wonder if they perhaps wrote that headline themselves and fed it to the news services.

Re: Fearing data privacy issues, Google cuts some Android phone data for carriers

#19

Post by sieabahlpark »

bmdavi3 wrote: post #5
mehrdadn wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy the "privacy concern" excuse for this one at all. It almost feels like something one would do purely to spite or trick the regulators and/or consumers for caring about privacy.

Between the Nest cam recording light becoming "always on" and this, it's like they've been brainstorming ways to be "pro-privacy" with the caveat that it can't affect the data they collect. We'll probably see another one next week.

Ever notice they do something very shortly after there is a stir about their internal anti privacy memos from the leaker?
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