Many Android users buy into the whole Android experience, which is largely a Google oriented one.
Probably we Soylentils have been more aware than most, of the the depth of Google's knowledge of our on-line life, and what we do with our phones. Some of us have made peace with that trade off, privacy for utility. Others, not so much.
We've all known there is a certain level of tracking going on, especially if we leave our phone's location services on to take advantage of Google maps, or getting a weather report, or use Google search to find just about anything.
But Seeing this Page you might think twice about using location services when you don't actually need them. (No Google account, don't bother clicking the link).
The page contains the last 30 days of your travels, whenever your phone recorded your location for any reason, such as when you used maps, or any app asked for location, or when any number of other unspecified capture events occured. You can even select a time period on the page, and have it replay your travels.
Sometimes the routes are less than accurate, but the destinations are usually faithfully recorded. And even more precisely recorded if you get near any wifi router.
The recording can get a little muddled if you have multiple Android devices, such as a tablet and a phone on the same Google account, and you run location services to run both. You will see location reports for both devices interspersed. On minute you are at work, two minutes later you are at home.
(I have no doubt Google can track each device separately, but they don't offer the ability to show them separately on that page).
On my map, for one day, it recorded my position no less than 64 times. The page linked above offers the ability to erase your location history. I'm sure its effective and totally scubs the data. *cough*.
Some android devices have verbiage on the settings page about sending only anonymous location data. But how anonymous can it be when they are all logged to your individual account?
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Friday October 10 2014, @07:48AM
I've known of that page for quite some time, in fact ever since Google latitude I've set it to maximum tracking.
The thing is, gov has this data if they want it because the phone companies have it. I expect someday to have some kind of AI assistant, and I'm going to want it to have that data. I know I'm taking a massive gamble, but realistically, who that wants it can't get it anyway?
I certainly trust Microsoft and Facebook a lot less than Google. Nevertheless, I'm one by one taking the services Google provides and serving them to myself, which for various reasons is slow going. I expect that one to be one of the last however.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 10 2014, @08:16AM
Unless the Government is getting it from Google, neither they, nor the cell company has anything that precise. Tower triangulation is at best going to put you in a square mile box.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SlimmPickens on Friday October 10 2014, @08:44AM
Perhaps, but not definitely. If they're interested in when I visit a particular house, it's going to look pretty similar to the phone towers each time I go there, and the time that I come and go from the area is going to help them. There's also quite a lot of towers where I live, they're inn railway stations, malls, all over the place. Plus if I'm a high enough value target they can set up some of those fake towers in close proximity to the places that are interesting. If they want it, they'll get it.
Like I said though, I'm more interested in me having the data than the government not having it. The Snowden stuff is the reason I'm moving away from Google though. I didn't really mind for the last few years, so it could be seen that I'm not doing anything I shouldn't be, but that's gone on long enough now, time to take my privacy back.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 10 2014, @10:46AM
You're thinking about the government's interest backwards. You're thinking: if the government has decided to look at me, they can get all of this data, but the scary part is that the government has all of the data and is trying to decide who to look at. They're not interested in how many times you visited a point of interest - they're interested in finding out who visited a point of interest. Or who's phone came within a given distance of another phone. They're trying to build networks of people out of contact, proximity, and meta- data. If they can narrow your location to a specific place, rather than a 3-block area, that's a lot easier.
Sure, it could be that You and Osama bin Laden's nephew just happen to like the same coffee shop, but you both seem to be there regularly at 7:45am. And you both visit reddit, a well known system for passing pseudonymous messages. Why do you hate America?
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Friday October 10 2014, @11:48AM
No mate, I'm thinking specifically about my situation. The title of my post even says so.
And once again, the point was that I want that data too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 10 2014, @09:26PM
Your post says that you want high resolution position history for yourself and that you don't think your use of these services changes the government's access to your position. My point is that GPS position tracking is much higher resolution than cell triangulation. i.e. it will put you in the same coffee shop, rather than in the same city block. Google, or whomever, won't have the high resolution data unless you use those services, so choosing to use them provides would-be stalkers or dragnetters data they would not otherwise have. If the government is screening position data, cell triangulation is not accurate enough to be useful. GPS data is. Cell triangulation is fine for following you, but it's not good for figuring out who might be meeting with you.
Like all cloud services, it's a choice one has to make for himself: whether the personal benefit of creating a data set is worth the risk of your nemesis, or the government, or the Russian mafia obtaining that data. I hope you find something really cool to do with it.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Saturday October 11 2014, @12:11AM
It's more than enough, see NSAKEY's comment below. Plus there's the temporal data. If three interesting phones all get batteries pulled and put in the freezer at roughly the same time it doesn't matter where they are. I'll go a little further and say that I'd heard phones could be tracked while switched off before I ever heard of Snowden. I didn't believe it at the time, thought it was paranoia, but what do you know? It turned out to be true.
(Score: 2) by _NSAKEY on Friday October 10 2014, @06:08PM
I'm going to respectfully disagree, due to my experience with seeing starter interrupt devices (Which we all got to talk about recently [soylentnews.org]). The models I got to interact with a few years ago operated entirely off of cell phone towers, and someone tracking one of those devices with the back-end webapp can see which roads you're driving on with a refresh rate of roughly 2 seconds. Of course, that's in cities (Which have more towers packed more closely together). Someone who is out in the sticks might have a better shot at being tracked less efficiently.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 10 2014, @08:27PM
Vehicle tracking (not only sub-prime borrowers, but also rentals) aren't using your cell phone. They have their own cell radio installed in the car. Those MIGHT just use cell tower triangulation, because that's all the more accuracy they need.
But for asset tracking, if you are going to put a cellular radio in a vehicle, wouldn't you spend the extra 36 cents to put a gps receiver in there as well, and skip the whole triangulation data dance? Especially if you were a private party (car rental) and didn't want to pay AT&T for all that tower data, which is expensive to pull, and process?
You will remember the big flap a few years ago where the iPhone was sending a constant stream of GPS location data to AT&T, who were apparently keeping all of it. That embarrassed Apple, who quickly released a fix, (AT&T is beyond embarrassment).
Obviously the carriers know roughly where you are anyway. They retain some history of this as well. But it is in the form of relative signal strengths and tower associations, and maybe which node (antenna) on that tower for a rough direction fix.
But its not that accurate until you are in a high tower density area.
See a couple pages that mention accuracy...
http://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2012/06/01/cell-tower-triangulation-how-it-works/ [wrongfulconvictionsblog.org]
http://searchengineland.com/cell-phone-triangulation-accuracy-is-all-over-the-map-14790 [searchengineland.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Friday October 10 2014, @01:19PM
> gov has this data if they want it
For sharing with the government: link [theguardian.com]
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 10 2014, @01:27PM
I would much rather have easy access to (and frequent reminders of) my location tracking data from ALL sources, not just where my Android / iOS devices are, but where and when my credit cards get used, when my license plate(s) are OCRed by any cameras, when and where my "automatic toll payment" devices are used, and - coming soon, when and where my face is recognized by security cameras.
Oh, not to mention when and where I'm posting in my online accounts.
To get upset about a single source of this data is silly - better to embrace, understand, and as much as possible learn how to control this data, instead of shrieking the first time you see it and turning off the only source that really shows you what's being collected.
(Score: 0, Troll) by curunir_wolf on Friday October 10 2014, @02:09PM
I certainly trust Microsoft and Facebook a lot less than Google.
Why? Because you buy their (previous) "Don't be evil" tagline? Because your ideology matches the elitist Eric Schmidt's? Or do you think he's just a more benevolent elitist than Zuckerberg and Gates?
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by wonkey_monkey on Friday October 10 2014, @07:54AM
Where haven't I been? Woof!
But seriously, that headline is terrible. You might as well have just called it "Summary"
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Funny) by yarp on Friday October 10 2014, @08:05AM
Maybe it needs more clickbait:
The Terrifying Truth About This Shocking Website That Knows Everywhere You've Ever Been!
Or perhaps a bit of Daily Mail sensationalism:
Internet Perverts At Google Are Tracking Your Children
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 10 2014, @08:13AM
Well it isn't EXACTLY the title I submitted. That's why we have editors.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 10 2014, @08:27AM
So the editors' job is to make the headlines worse?
Or you mean, your original headline was even worse, and the editors improved on it?
(Score: 3, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Friday October 10 2014, @02:23PM
Maybe it's been a while since frojack posted a story, and this is the only way LaminatorX knows how to communicate.
That would explain that "Don't Forgot To Pick Up Milk On Your Way Home" story the other day.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday October 10 2014, @12:08PM
Lord Flashheart Wonkey Monkey? Is it really you?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 10 2014, @07:56AM
disable
(Score: 3, Informative) by lhsi on Friday October 10 2014, @08:13AM
Indeed. I checked the page and the only location tracking I had was for a single journey that I took recently that I needed directions for. Neither my house nor place of work showed up. I generally have location turned off unless I actually need it for something as it uses the battery a somewhat noticeable amount.
(Score: 1) by Anonoob on Friday October 10 2014, @10:16AM
I had no history there and have used google maps on phone in that time. Same as last time someone pointed out the page - is good to know that turning off the location options on the phone must actually do something. Is a creepy reminder however, that it all probably feeds to a database somewhere anyway - just in case!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 10 2014, @03:51PM
The phone companies have a much more accurate list of what you do what websites you connect to what services you run. Your phone chipset stack will beacon and tell the tower signal strength and other towers it sees. It beacons so the tower knows where to send an SMS message or how to let a call thru. This and a bit o math you can get it down to a few feet where you are no GPS needed. It has to do this so the tower knows if it should talk to you or not. Your phone can many times 'see' more than one tower and the towers track that too. Even if the phone is not activated it is tracked. Thats just the location bits. They also facilitate the connection between you and the internet so they know which servers you are talking to.
At least with google you can see how well it is being tracked. You have no such options with your phone company. They track it and you will like it because you signed it away in that fine print so you could get that shiny phone.
With that bit o knowledge I turn all of it on. It has some marginal use to me. The only way to not be tracked with a cell phone is to go full RMS and not carry one.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khakipuce on Friday October 10 2014, @11:53AM
Curiously it is not comprehensive. Last week end I made a 200+mile journey south on Friday evening and back on Sunday, I used my phone as a sat nav both ways. It has no record of the Friday journey but has a complete record of the return trip. Looking at other days it often has the destinations but not the journeys in between and those destinations would seem to be the nearest cell tower, not the actual destination.
My hunch is that as I often end up in, or travel through places with no network coverage, it is only storing and periodically uploading the data, hence if you finish a journey somewhere where data cannot be uploaded, the data gets dropped.
(Score: 1) by art guerrilla on Saturday October 11 2014, @09:05AM
exactly...
kind of disappointing, have had android tablets for the last 3 years, and droid phone the last 4 months, and have left GPS off, which leads to : "no locations to report"...
bwa ha ha ha ha haaaaaaa
where am i google ? ? ?
i'm walking down your block, google...
i'm on your sidewalk, google...
i'm busting in your front door, google...
i'm right outside your bedroom, google...
BOO! ! !
didn't see that coming, did you larry ? ? ?
(Score: 2) by lhsi on Friday October 10 2014, @08:17AM
I had seen this page before (I think), but didn't notice the replay, which is kinda interesting - it seems to show the relative speed of travel too. When I replayed the single journey I took, it started moving along the map slowly (we were in traffic), then zipped across a bit where there was no traffic, then slowed again as we got into a residential area where there were a lot of corners.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Monday October 13 2014, @12:56AM
I have an app which does just that - Waze. This free GPS app was recently purchased by Google, so I am sure they know as well. The purpose of this app is to provide routes to your destination based on the speed that other Waze users are travelling the same routes, providing real time traffic avoidance. It is amazingly effective in advoiding the nightmarish traffic in the DC region, and I figure everyone else is already tracking me anyway so why not Google?
I actually trust Google more than most other companies. At least they are honest about their tracking. When they updated their privacy policy a few years ago, they said something like "Privacy Policy - we know no-one reads these but read ours - it is important! I read it which was surprisingly written in actual English, and checked the information Google had on me. They had lots of very detailed and accurate information on me, none of which surprised me at all.
Ever since Steve Gibson coined the "spyware" term at about mid century, I have assumed everything I do on the Interwebs will be tracked, and assuming anything on my cellphone will tracked as well.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday October 10 2014, @09:10AM
Although I use a lot of Google services, and do have an android, I was very pleased to see that Google reports "You have no location history" for every single day.
Leave the Android location services turned off, unless you are actively using Google Maps. The only price you pay is a couple minutes wait, when you turn location services on - it takes a while to figure out where you are, when it's starting from scratch.
Privacy may be a vanishing illusion, but I'll hold onto it as long as I can...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 10 2014, @09:56AM
I use google maps every day. Location is disabled. Works fine.
(Score: 1) by robodog on Friday October 10 2014, @01:08PM
You can also use Google location services *and* turn off location history only. I wouldn't be surprised though, if the EULA for those services allowed Google to store your position information in other forms and for other purposes. I haven't read it.
(Score: 1) by captainClassLoader on Friday October 10 2014, @10:06PM
My Motorola Droid Razr has it's own incentive plan for keeping location services off - Location services suck the battery down so fast when that stuff is on that you can almost watch the battery icon change. Originally I thought this was a bug, but after a while I decided otherwise. Unless I'm navigating somewhere or trying to figure out what that star is with Google Sky, location services are off. Which, for sedentary me, means that 99% of the time they're off.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by pixeldyne on Friday October 10 2014, @09:54AM
Could it be used by someone to prove they were nowhere near a crime scene on a particular day (if location service was switched on and pinging every 5 minutes for example) ?
It looks very inaccurate though. Apparently I start my day in a ditch, then travel to work - with my office shifting (sliding?) north by 500 feet each day.
(Score: 2) by pixeldyne on Friday October 10 2014, @10:02AM
It gets worse. At night it appears I make frequent flights to the ocean side about 15 miles from my house and then before I wake up I land in a ditch?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 10 2014, @01:05PM
It could prove that your phone was nowhere near a crime scene on a particular day...
Always remember: having information is only proof of ability to create the information.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday October 10 2014, @01:25PM
Only if you used your phone to talk to somebody during the relevant time period. Otherwise, they could argue that, for example, you left your phone on your desk at work, drove somewhere without it, killed the victim, cleaned up, and then drove back to work and picked your phone up again.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by snick on Friday October 10 2014, @01:35PM
All true.
Of course if the location history showed your phone passing by the scene of a crime, that would be accepted as irrefutable evidence that you are guilty.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday October 10 2014, @04:03PM
Nah, I'm not black.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday October 10 2014, @09:02PM
I thought if you were black, the police just shot you, skipping that whole trial and sentencing part. Oh, and before actually ascertaining whether you'd done anything wrong.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday October 10 2014, @02:18PM
I strongly suspect that, conveniently for law enforcement, it can be used to prove guilt but not innocence.
"Sir, the system says you were here last night!"
"Well, it says you were at home...but the system isn't really reliable."
Dammit, Slashdot, you've turned me into a cynical bastard.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 10 2014, @07:46PM
You generally don't have to prove you were no where near a crime scene.
They (cops) have to prove you were there.
For my phone, on the days I was on the move, it collected locations every few minutes. For the days I was in the office on WIFI it collected location very rarely. Its smart enough to know if you are connected to a WIFI you are probably withing 100 feet of it.
So from this, I deduce it collects and stores history only when it notices a change in location, and if wifi is on, merely seeing a beacon from an access point that it recognizes (without actually connecting) allows it to plot locations without firing up the GPS at all. Pass a starbucks, or a public library or a hotel and it knows where you are.
If you turn WIFI off, you force it to power up the GPS more often, and it tends to not do that any more than necessary, so your accuracy can be much lower.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Friday October 10 2014, @08:47PM
Except that you are allowed to delete individual points from the map.
Also, if you start your day in a ditch, I bet the map shows your previous night ended at a dive bar.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Friday October 10 2014, @10:18AM
I have never actually convinced by all this smartphone fad, but since I like first hand experience, and don't like to talk hearsay, I bought an Android phone and kept it as my only phone for one year. It was a low end device (Sony Xperia Tipo), doing as much as I needed, and some games. Here's my experience.
The cool factor is actually pretty powerful, I immagine it's even more for higher end devices (iPhones, Android flagships). My friends' devices are definetly more fluid and "plesurable" to use. I've installed games, used it for browsing, hacked the OS, etc. Having cost-free messages that can also send files (Whatsapp) was quite huge for me at the time. I've never installed facebook, twitter or other social networks.
I expected the OS to do actually something more for my privacy. I expected it to send usage data to Google (eg. TFS link), and certainly usage data about a certain app to that app's dev, but not expected it to be a "spies' wet dream". I know they've always spied on people, and they always will, but it's the amount and quality of data that makes the difference between a stupidphone and a smartphone.
With time, I actually only used messaging, browsing and maps. I found that being always connected stressed me. I tried FirefoxOS for a brief month, but then lost it somewhere. Bad luck. I decided to go back to a stupidphone (having something that's waterproof at 40€ is a great bonus), and I'm happy with it. I don't miss *any* of the convenience a smartphone offers. I think the "need" of that kind of device is kinda induced. I don't even miss the maps (which was my biggest worry about switching back). The main nuissance is convincing my friends to send me traditional SMS or (better) call me.
tl;dr: I think smartphones are not really that useful and the tradeoff is not worth it.
In capitalist America, ads view YOU!
(Score: 1) by Natales on Friday October 10 2014, @02:36PM
Dude, you live in a bubble. Most of us have no choice anymore. Employers already have the expectation that you are mobile and connected all the time and they will leverage that whenever they can.
Even worst. My company (a 1,800 people Software company) standardized in Google Apps and they became completely dependent on it. They also pay for my phone bill (including MiFi) so I use my Galaxy Note 3 on the road all the time for IM, email, live Google hangouts, presentations and document sharing, all with Google. The form factor of the phone and the user-level experience is excellent, but I know there is a permanent tracking of information and every metric the phone can provide. I have NO expectations of privacy whatsoever when I use that system.
For that reason, I simply don't do anything "personal" with it. All my personal online activities are done from a separate laptop with Qubes OS as the main OS, permanently VPN'ed in to a multihop provider and using a Tor VM behind that. Very different. I never do anything "personal" on my work phone or laptop.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 10 2014, @02:51PM
"Dude, you live in a bubble."
Better the smart bubble and dumb phone than the dumb bubble and smart phone.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday October 10 2014, @06:08PM
Screw 'em. They can expect whatever they want, doesn't mean they're getting it. If I'm not doing anything and sober I'll answer, but about half the time I just ignore their calls. They can't really punish you for not answering if it's not actually your shift man. Pretty sure that would violate some labor laws regarding unpaid overtime if they tried.
(Score: 1) by Gertlex on Friday October 10 2014, @02:58PM
I too have a similar opinion, and have validated it by carrying a dumbphone and an iPod Touch for the past 5 years. 80% of the latter's usage is as an ereader. By virtue of a GPS app, it has offline maps that fill 90% of my needs (It just doesn't know where the newer bars/restaurants are...). And I'm perfectly happy to get away from being constantly connected... I get much more reading done that way.
(As for the article, despite using the iTouch for google's Hangouts app, and always having the wifi on these days, Google had no position data. Success without trying, hurrah!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 10 2014, @10:58AM
I don't have a google account, I disabled all googles services and installed f-droid. Don't forget to turn wifi off unless you're actually using it.
Thing is, it's now just a way for me to collect email in coffee shops. I hardly use it as a phone anymore, so I could turn the mobile network off and it'd make little difference.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday October 10 2014, @06:16PM
Go beyond just F-droid. Install Cyanogenmod. Even if the app claims it requires location data, you can allow or deny it on a per-application basis.
Then you can truly LOCK IT DOWN. All my network traffic routes through tor (and, unlike when I just rooted, I haven't noticed much performance hit from it. Dunno why). My storage is encrypted. No apps have access to anything they don't need for just the features I use. Facebook doesn't get location or camera, the play store doesn't get to make phone calls. Ads, even in apps, are blocked. My mail is PGP signed and encrypted. I have no location history according to that page. I can still use GPS on Google Maps, but it's a different service that does that tracking, and I'm not even sure I have that one installed, let alone granted location access.
It's a nightly build (Sprint Galaxy S5, no stable release yet) but it's still faster and crashes far less than the stock rom.
I feel like it's finally MY phone, not just some crap I'm renting.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 10 2014, @07:54PM
Agreed.
Having GPS/Location services isn't the enemy here, its the History. You can run location services in Google, for maps, weather, finding restaurants, etc, but turn off (and purge) the history.
The phone will know where it is at the moment, and any app that you allow to know will still know, but no history will be saved. You give up very little functionality by turning off history.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 10 2014, @02:08PM
Google only tracks one account per device.
I created a dummy Google account, and use that as the original account on any new device. It is also the only account that I use to buy from the Play Store, but those are the only things that account is ever used for.
Once the device is setup, I then add my business, friends, and family accounts to the device as additional accounts and use location tracking for any of the useful features I enjoy. All location tracking gets reference to an account that I never use for anything else, and going to the linked page, on that account, yes, I can pretty well track where I've been. Going to any account that might show up from any online interaction, though, result, in the "No location information available" message.
Best of both worlds.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday October 10 2014, @05:54PM
I installed Cyanogenmod two weeks ago. Looking at that page, literally the day I installed it, my location history vanishes. Tons of reports before that, even though I *always* kept location data disabled, turned off most of the Google services, etc.
What's interesting is I did re-enable location services to Google Maps a couple days ago to use the GPS. But of course, with Cyanogenmod I also have control on a per-app basis. So just allowing Maps to access location data won't upload that data to Google; you've gotta give access to some other service as well. Not sure what that service is though -- anyone know?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 10 2014, @07:34PM
you've gotta give access to some other service as well. Not sure what that service is though -- anyone know?
Rather than having every app that might want to know your location fire up the GPS, killing your battery, Google has, in later releases of Android, built in location services API's which intercept any other app's attempt to get to the GPS.
These APIs are collectively known as the Fused Location Provider [android.com].
That allows apps, like Weather Widgets, for an example, to ask android for what general are you are in so they can pull a weather map for your city. That request doesn't have to be too accurate. For Maps, or turn by turn navigation, the same APIs can give you high accuracy positions.
The also provide "geofencing". So you can say to the phone "OK Google, remind me to get milk when I get to Safeway" and it will set up a fence around Safeway stores and pop up an alert when you go into one, or even get close.
You CAN use location services of Google AND turn off history. Modern versions of android have this built into settings. Fish around in your settings, I bet you will find it.
So you can STILL get notified about buying milk as Safeway, BUT have no history collected by Google. What you lose is commute time predictions, and a few other things that are based on your past trips. Those can be useful if there is suddenly a lot of traffic on your route, Google Now will pop up and tell you to leave earlier than normal. Not a compelling use case for my situation, but for some commuters it might be very valuable.
So I turn location services on, but I turn history off. Kind of the best of both worlds for my use case.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Friday October 10 2014, @06:03PM
Turning off GPS on phone now.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday October 10 2014, @07:49PM
Why not leave it on, and just turn off history?
Its not an ALL or Nothing decision.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Friday October 10 2014, @09:04PM
Hmm? Oh the battery was running low and I need to conserve power.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh