maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps • Hacker News Board

Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

#171

Post by dotancohen » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 12:46 PM UTC

KronisLV wrote: post #80

dbrgn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need OSM on Android, I can recommend: - "Organic Maps" (a fork of the old MapsMe codebase) if you want a clean, simple user experience - "OSMAnd" if you want a very powerful, highly customizable map application, which comes at the cost of a steeper learning curve Both apps are open source and support navigation, offline maps and POI search. The things I miss most compared to Google Maps is live traffic informa…

I also had some success with HERE maps: https://wego.here.com Their Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.here.app.m... Their Apple app: https://apps.apple.com/app/id955837609 The performance is good (especially on a budget Android device, better than the recent versions of Google Maps, even), they're reasonably accurate (I'm in Eastern Europe) and include navigation, traffic information, pub…

From where do they get traffic information? The only viable app that I've ever seen for traffic data is Waze, because of the huge install base. I do remember HERE from when they were a Nokia brand, but even with that history I think that they'd be too small to have good traffic information.

Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

#172

Post by eternalban » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 12:46 PM UTC

__michaelg wrote: post #126

This is a fantastic example of motivated reasoning. This "change" (which apparently isn't even new) can have so many different reasons, some of which are less harmful and some of which are probably worse (privacy-wise) than the one mentioned here. There is no indication that re/mis-using permissions is specifically what they wanted to do here, there is also no example of them doing it right now. Don't get me wrong, t…

> This is a fantastic example of motivated reasoning.

Did we read the same short article? [not parody]

It's so short, we can copy paste it here and then you can point out where he reasoned that Google did this with intent to track.

> But the blog post basically list a single symptom and jumps right to the one conclusion that fits what the author expects.

OP is simply stating a consequence of this change!

"Congratulations, you now have permission to geo-track me across all of your services."

Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

#173

Post by noneofyour » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 12:46 PM UTC

gtirloni wrote: post #63

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #15

I am having a hard time figuring out how this would be affected by GDPR.

Does the GDPR care about the concept of apps and URLs? If not, all it matters is the person/company relationship.

Exactly. The consent was provided for the specific processing, not the TLD. The processing and all of those that are not incompatible with it, that it asked permission for that furthermore adhere to the requirements imposed regarding specific and informed consent in the GDPR (see Article 4, sub 11 GDPR and article 7 GDPR.

Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

#174

Post by onlyrealcuzzo » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 12:46 PM UTC

jimlikeslimes wrote: post #104

Genuine question. Is it reasonable as a user to expect data collected by Google via maps.google.com to not be shared with other Google applications e.g. mail.google.com? I'd have thought data collected on any of their domains would be meshed/merged behind the scenes where it suits them to do so?

FWIW, there's an EU regulation coming that prevents companies from using data necessary for a product (like maps) to be used to improve a different product (like search).

Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

#175

Post by college_physics » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 12:47 PM UTC

canbus wrote: post #7

https://www.openstreetmap.org

osm and wikipedia are proof that an alternative, more desirable, digital universe is not utopically distant but begging to be born. imagine if the world would somehow muster to dedicate something more than token support to such projects / designs

prediction: osm will eventually surpass wikipedia as the most successful crowdsourced effort because the more objective and simple nature of its data allows dramatic scaling. if even 1% of the billions of the world's roaming mobile devices get into the habbit of augmenting the osm database (e.g. using streamlined UI's like streetcomplete or yet to be build apps) the disruption will be on its way

Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

#176

Post by teekert » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 12:47 PM UTC

deng wrote: post #67

teekert wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you put all G-services in their own container, google.com/mail can't access google.com/maps cookies, so, will it also not track location. Not sure actually, they indeed probably store your "consent" on their server. Could you block location services per container perhaps? Hmm this is a smart move indeed, all of a sudden I'm logged into G-maps whereas I wasn't before... FireFox helpfully opened google.com/maps in m…

> google.com/mail can't access google.com/maps cookies, so, will it also not track location google.com has now direct access to your location, it doesn't need any cookies.

Would be nice if you could spoof or block access to your location per FF container. I'll see if I can put in a feature request.

Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

#177

Post by dotancohen » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 12:47 PM UTC

NGRhodes wrote: post #149

canbus wrote: post #7

https://www.openstreetmap.org

Obviously YMMV. I live about 1 mile from suburbs in a town called Bingley in Yorkshire, England. I can't trust Google maps locally (though its good for local business searches), as the mapping quality is terrible. My village and local town have roads missing, numerous public rights of way missing (over both public and private land). Major areas of trees missing. OSM is much, much better. See the difference: https://i…

> OSM with OSRM or Grasshopper

Is this usable on mobile? Can you tell a bit more?

Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

#178

Post by mtmail » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 12:48 PM UTC

db48x wrote: post #136

ruph123 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately this is really not an option for (some) areas in the US. After having moved to a populous LA area from Germany I was baffled at the lack of detail in the maps. Basic things like building numbers are entirely missing. Even after adding more and more details I would never fully rely on OSM here sadly. And if it only works sometimes why even bother using it in the first place? At least this was my progress…

A lot of the US road map was imported from TIGER ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topologically_Integrated_Geogr... >). This is an electronic mapping system set up in the 90s by the US Government to aid in conducting the census. The TIGER data doesn’t have any address information at all, just road shapes. No information about the type of road, the number of lanes, the quality of the surface, presence of sidewalks, sig…

> TIGER data doesn’t have any address information at all

In the EDGE tables it does have ZIP codes and house number ranges, split into left and right side of the road. ZIP codes were imported into OpenStreetMap data. House number ranges are imported into the OpenStreetMap search into a separate database table, so searching works in a lot of areas but it's far from complete, all the issues you mentioned with roads that don't even exist etc

Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

#179

Post by imajoredinecon » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 12:49 PM UTC

Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #165

Lockal wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google could enable ESNI, if they wanted.

I presume they are talking about the DNS "leak". google.com/maps would result in a DNS request for google.com so anyone monitoring DNS would know they are connecting to a google service but wouldn't know which one. maps.google.com would result in a DNS request that show they are connecting to maps.google.com and could presume they want some maps. DoH (and ESNI on the server side) would fix it, but iirc Chrome (the mo…

> iirc Chrome (the most used browser) doesn't use DoH by default.

Last I checked, Linux was behind other platforms because there’s a lot of complex custom dns configuration that chrome (understandably) didn’t want to be accused of overriding/ignoring, but which isn’t all easily visible to the browser

Re: maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps

#180

Post by arminiusreturns » Thu, Nov 24, 2022, 12:51 PM UTC

underdeserver wrote: post #163

croes wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the grand master of user tracking and the developer of the web's most used browser knows exactly what they are doing.

Google is huge. You'd be surprised how something that's common knowledge in one team is completely unknown to other teams.

Hanlons Razor is a fallacy on it's face and I'm so tired of the incompetence excuse for actors who are repeatedly bad.