SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Quartz has found that Android phones have been tracking user locations and sending them to Google throughout 2017:
Even if you take all of those precautions, phones running Android software gather data about your location and send it back to Google when they're connected to the internet, a Quartz investigation has revealed.
Since the beginning of 2017, Android phones have been collecting the addresses of nearby cellular towers—even when location services are disabled—and sending that data back to Google. The result is that Google, the unit of Alphabet behind Android, has access to data about individuals' locations and their movements that go far beyond a reasonable consumer expectation of privacy. Quartz observed the data collection occur and contacted Google, which confirmed the practice.
The cell tower addresses have been included in information sent to the system Google uses to manage push notifications and messages on Android phones for the past 11 months, according to a Google spokesperson. They were never used or stored, the spokesperson said, and the company is now taking steps to end the practice after being contacted by Quartz. By the end of November, the company said, Android phones will no longer send cell-tower location data to Google, at least as part of this particular service, which consumers cannot disable.
"In January of this year, we began looking into using Cell ID codes as an additional signal to further improve the speed and performance of message delivery," the Google spokesperson said in an email. "However, we never incorporated Cell ID into our network sync system, so that data was immediately discarded, and we updated it to no longer request Cell ID."
Also at TechCrunch and Engadget.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 22 2017, @08:46AM (5 children)
I'm not worried about Google, or even the government, tracking my location via my cellphone. My ankle bracelet already does that.
(Score: 4, Touché) by letssee on Wednesday November 22 2017, @10:42AM (4 children)
Pff, if you use a cell phone (even an old non-smart one) you are being tracked. Period. Your phone company knows where you are, and if the government need to know they can just ask. And the various secret services of the world probably pick the phone-company data off the web anyway.
Still, google and facebook are the two most scary companies in the world imho.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday November 22 2017, @11:50PM (3 children)
> Still, google and facebook are the two most scary companies in the world imho.
Close, but not the top: They give you something for free, in exchange for the tracking.
Verizon and AT&T (and friends) track you, and still charge you. You kind of don't have the choice, courtesy of their anticompetitive actions.
At the pinnacle, I find it a scariest that people choose to shell out lots of cash for the privilege of being tracked by Apple.
(Score: 2) by letssee on Thursday November 23 2017, @08:55AM (2 children)
Apple is about the only company that does not sell your data to others. I think their hardware is overpriced and overdesigned and I don't like the hand-holding restrictiveness of their software, but they are more or less the last company whose business model is not 'big data'.
Still scary off course, the amount of data they send back to the mothership. You're one hack or company policy away from losing your privacy with Apple. But that's still better than Google/Facebook, where you don't have any privacy to begin with.
My nightmare news headline would be: "Google buys Microsoft as Facebook announces it's hostile takeover of Apple inc." Or swapped around.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Saturday November 25 2017, @09:03AM (1 child)
*blinks*
*blinks*
*reads again*
*blinks*
You ... can't be seriously believing what you wrote, right? Poe's Law, whatever razor, someone, anyone, to the rescue of my sanity, please?
*reads again*
Oh shit, it IS there: "they are more or less the last company whose business model is not 'big data'."
*drinks*
(Score: 2) by letssee on Wednesday December 06 2017, @10:18PM
well, they need to do *something* different to justify their exorbitant pricing :-)
I'm not saying they won't change their stance, but atm they really are the lesser evil, compared to Google, Microsoft and (shudder) facebook.
Personally I use *only* linux. Usability be damned, I like my freedom.