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Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

forum.swype.com

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Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#41

Post by JTon »

davexunit wrote: post #31
sikhnerd wrote: post #7

Every time I see something like this come up, it really makes me wonder how many other apps out there are doing the same thing and getting away with it. Unless you root your phone and use something like the mentioned android firewall, or go whole-hog and install Cyanogenmod, what chance do you have to guard against this? I assume ios users are likely in the same boat, but with even less chance of recourse.

Proprietary applications spy on their users constantly. It's no surprise that Swype is making these location requests. Rooting your phone isn't an answer in itself. Rooting allows you to install a more free Android distro like Replicant or CyanogenMod. However, if you're still using proprietary applications then you haven't accomplished too much. iOS users have no chance at all. There is no freedom in the iThings. Ap…

Agreed. But I'd like to point out it's not not clear whether the insane amount of location requests is a "feature" or bug. In the thread OP linked to, other users reported Swype acting as expected (i.e. few to no location requests)

Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#42

Post by threeseed »

davexunit wrote: post #31
sikhnerd wrote: post #7

Every time I see something like this come up, it really makes me wonder how many other apps out there are doing the same thing and getting away with it. Unless you root your phone and use something like the mentioned android firewall, or go whole-hog and install Cyanogenmod, what chance do you have to guard against this? I assume ios users are likely in the same boat, but with even less chance of recourse.

Proprietary applications spy on their users constantly. It's no surprise that Swype is making these location requests. Rooting your phone isn't an answer in itself. Rooting allows you to install a more free Android distro like Replicant or CyanogenMod. However, if you're still using proprietary applications then you haven't accomplished too much. iOS users have no chance at all. There is no freedom in the iThings. Ap…

> iOS users have no chance at all

Except that you know they have more protection than Android.

The user is prompted when the app requests the users' current location and there is per-app preferences to disable location service.

Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#43

Post by anondoge »

DominikR wrote: post #40

Maybe this is caused by using Google Play Services to get the location. The location tracking of Google Play Services is basically a black box, that tracks the users movement very accurately. It could be that we don't see the count of location requests Swype made, but instead the count of location requests Google Play Services makes.

I work at Nuance, the Engineering Managers joke about Privacy concerns and how it is not their problem to worry about. And they are facing a log collection crisis. ie their data centers are melting with logs.

Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#45

Post by Erwin »

userbinator wrote: post #17

The official response is that location data is used for "regional dialects"... makes sense, but is IP geolocation not close enough? The screenshot there doesn't make it clear but is this coarse or fine location data? My keyboard, no matter how smart, shouldn't need to know where exactly it is on Earth to within a few meters. Within a state or town, fair enough.

I'm sure that if they used IP-based geolocation, the headline would be: Swype connects to Swype servers almost 4000 times per day, reporting on user location. Unless you're suggesting that a complete IP->country database should be included as part of the database -- I assume there isn't already such a database bundled as part of the Android OS.

Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#46

Post by scep12 »

davidgerard wrote: post #37
scep12 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was never released -- they removed access to a feature that was not intended for the public. That seems well within their right. For you to declare "Google seems to have no interest in protecting android users from this either." seems quite misguided, given that they are clearly working on a solution for this exact problem.

>given that they are clearly working on a solution for this exact problem. Evidence?

The "App Ops" settings that they accidentally released seems evident enough that the feature is forthcoming. Am I missing something?

Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#47

Post by untog »

userbinator wrote: post #33
Frazzydee wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google seems to have no interest in protecting android users from this either. There was an app called 'App Ops' that gave android users the ability to choose which permissions they wanted to grant applications. No root required. Get too many notifications from an app, or don't need location functionality? You used to be able to turn these features off one-by-one for each app. You could also see the last time an app…

Why wouldn't Google want users to have such powerful control over their devices? It's always explained like this: Because it's "simpler." Because "things will break if the user does something wrong." Because "the average user won't need it." Those same poor excuses have been responsible for so much loss of privacy and freedom elsewhere, not just by Google. To me, they're deliberately preventing users from having too…

That's exactly the reason, and it's more legitimate than you give it credit for. I can foresee numerous situations where users disable location tracking (in the name of saving battery) without realising the effect it will have (rendering a location-based app useless).

A nice middle ground would be to keep App Ops, but hidden away somewhere, much like the Developer Tools are.

Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#49

Post by bbradley406 »

sikhnerd wrote: post #7

Every time I see something like this come up, it really makes me wonder how many other apps out there are doing the same thing and getting away with it. Unless you root your phone and use something like the mentioned android firewall, or go whole-hog and install Cyanogenmod, what chance do you have to guard against this? I assume ios users are likely in the same boat, but with even less chance of recourse.

I recall reading here that on Android, an app won't automatically update if the newer version needs additional permissions, so most devs ask for all they could possibly need up front. Ideally, Google will bring back App Ops (with dummy data so that apps don't crash), and allow explanations in permission requests. Currently, iOs has per-app permission settings, and apps don't crash when you deny them access. This doesn't solve the problem of users just clicking "allow" blindly, but it does provide more fine-grained control.

Re: Swype makes almost 4000 location requests every day

#50

Post by hardwaresofton »

I recently noticed swype was making my phone lag if I used it (I was using samsung's keyboard as an alternative, it has swype-like functionality), so I stopped using it, imagining something like this was the case. Couldn't understand why a typing app would every slow down -- glad my paranoia paid off
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