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Google tracks users who turn off location history
71–80 of 108 posts
Re: Google tracks users who turn off location history
#72People can stalk people. Beyond a certain threshold (defined by jurisdiction), it's illegal.
Why wouldn't this apply to corporations? To (legal) entity?
Corporations and their lobbyists spend a lot of time, money, and effort claiming they are "people". For example, with respect to their "free speech" -- meaning, lately, unlimited spending on political campaigns.
Well, ok then, I would propose that they can stalk, like people.
Oh, but wait, there's the catch. They've already beaten me, with their outsized pocketbooks, to the very people who would legally define this.
In the U.S., at least, the law is a _____. Pardon my, albeit self-censored, decidedly improper language. But sometimes, crudeness is the rhetoric of clarity -- in all its unpleasantness and offensiveness.
Re: Google tracks users who turn off location history
#73To add one datum, I turned off location history thinking that meant that Google would use my _current_ location for Maps, Search etc while not storing my _past_ locations. Their interface and messaging did not succeed in dissuading me from this belief, despite the fact that I was explicitly looking for messaging and settings related to protecting my privacy. Was I naive to believe this was even possible in the first…
11 months ago, I posted a Ask HN exactly about that. I got flagged. Now I see that I was at least partially right.
Re: Google tracks users who turn off location history
#74To add one datum, I turned off location history thinking that meant that Google would use my _current_ location for Maps, Search etc while not storing my _past_ locations. Their interface and messaging did not succeed in dissuading me from this belief, despite the fact that I was explicitly looking for messaging and settings related to protecting my privacy. Was I naive to believe this was even possible in the first…
I’d recommend taking a look at https://www.privacytools.io . It has quite a few recommendations for different services that respect your privacy, many of which are FOSS. For e-mail, calendars, and contacts I’ve migrated over to FastMail. In my opinion the web client and help articles are far superior to Google’s offerings. You can even use your own domain along with 100+ aliases. For cloud storage I have migrated fro…
>For cloud storage I have migrated from Google Drive to iCloud Drive
I've moved to Nextcloud. It is completely open source, but you need to run it on your own server. Since it's provided in a Snap package, setup only takes a few minutes. I personally use a $5 per month Linode, but many people opt to use something like a Raspberry Pi.
Having your own server also allows you to ditch third party email and VPN providers, though those are more complicated to set up.
Re: Google tracks users who turn off location history
#75To add one datum, I turned off location history thinking that meant that Google would use my _current_ location for Maps, Search etc while not storing my _past_ locations. Their interface and messaging did not succeed in dissuading me from this belief, despite the fact that I was explicitly looking for messaging and settings related to protecting my privacy. Was I naive to believe this was even possible in the first…
The location history setting is for Timeline, a feature that lives inside Google Maps app. I use Timeline often and find it useful. I hope all the FUD you people are spreading about it does not force Google to get rid of the Timeline feature. Maybe in the future they'll include a lengthy explanation next to that switch for the fearful among us.
Re: Google tracks users who turn off location history
#76"Turning off" location history == Don't show me my location history. It's not like Google (or Apple) is going to actually stop tracking you. I love showing iPhone users the section in Settings where all their location history is. Most have no idea it's there.
The iPhone location history is on your iPhone not at Apple. And Apple doesn’t track you. They cycle identifiers regularly for exactly this reason. Spreading falsehoods about this being something everyone does is harmful because it normalizes the abusive behavior from those that actually do.
How do you know? Have you audited the source of iOS?
Re: Google tracks users who turn off location history
#77To add one datum, I turned off location history thinking that meant that Google would use my _current_ location for Maps, Search etc while not storing my _past_ locations. Their interface and messaging did not succeed in dissuading me from this belief, despite the fact that I was explicitly looking for messaging and settings related to protecting my privacy. Was I naive to believe this was even possible in the first…
The location history setting is for Timeline, a feature that lives inside Google Maps app. I use Timeline often and find it useful. I hope all the FUD you people are spreading about it does not force Google to get rid of the Timeline feature. Maybe in the future they'll include a lengthy explanation next to that switch for the fearful among us.
It would help if Google wouldn't ask me to review the coffee just in front of my current bus stop.
Re: Google tracks users who turn off location history
#78"Turning off" location history == Don't show me my location history. It's not like Google (or Apple) is going to actually stop tracking you. I love showing iPhone users the section in Settings where all their location history is. Most have no idea it's there.
The iPhone location history is on your iPhone not at Apple. And Apple doesn’t track you. They cycle identifiers regularly for exactly this reason. Spreading falsehoods about this being something everyone does is harmful because it normalizes the abusive behavior from those that actually do.
If Apple doesn't track me then why does icloud.com force me to re-login every time I switch which country I'm in? How would they know I moved countries (plane/vpn) if I weren't remembering where I was previously?
Re: Google tracks users who turn off location history
#79[deleted]
Re: Google tracks users who turn off location history
#80To add one datum, I turned off location history thinking that meant that Google would use my _current_ location for Maps, Search etc while not storing my _past_ locations. Their interface and messaging did not succeed in dissuading me from this belief, despite the fact that I was explicitly looking for messaging and settings related to protecting my privacy. Was I naive to believe this was even possible in the first…
I’d recommend taking a look at https://www.privacytools.io . It has quite a few recommendations for different services that respect your privacy, many of which are FOSS. For e-mail, calendars, and contacts I’ve migrated over to FastMail. In my opinion the web client and help articles are far superior to Google’s offerings. You can even use your own domain along with 100+ aliases. For cloud storage I have migrated fro…
I will second FastMail and the claim that its web client is superior to GMail. In fact, the entire service is superior to GMail. It's faster, the UI is snappier, IMAP integration is better, the features are way more advanced, etc. It even lets you use a custom anti-spam servicename@username.mydomain.com scheme natively.
For file syncing, I quite like Dropbox and Syncthing.