SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They're Not Keeping It Secret
At least 75 companies receive anonymous, precise location data from apps whose users enable location services to get local news and weather or other information, The Times found. Several of those businesses claim to track up to 200 million mobile devices in the United States — about half those in use last year. The database reviewed by The Times — a sample of information gathered in 2017 and held by one company — reveals people’s travels in startling detail, accurate to within a few yards and in some cases updated more than 14,000 times a day.
These companies sell, use or analyze the data to cater to advertisers, retail outlets and even hedge funds seeking insights into consumer behavior. It’s a hot market, with sales of location-targeted advertising reaching an estimated $21 billion this year. IBM has gotten into the industry, with its purchase of the Weather Channel’s apps. The social network Foursquare remade itself as a location marketing company. Prominent investors in location start-ups include Goldman Sachs and Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder.
Businesses say their interest is in the patterns, not the identities, that the data reveals about consumers. They note that the information apps collect is tied not to someone’s name or phone number but to a unique ID. But those with access to the raw data — including employees or clients — could still identify a person without consent. They could follow someone they knew, by pinpointing a phone that regularly spent time at that person’s home address. Or, working in reverse, they could attach a name to an anonymous dot, by seeing where the device spent nights and using public records to figure out who lived there.
Many location companies say that when phone users enable location services, their data is fair game. But, The Times found, the explanations people see when prompted to give permission are often incomplete or misleading. An app may tell users that granting access to their location will help them get traffic information, but not mention that the data will be shared and sold. That disclosure is often buried in a vague privacy policy.
“Location information can reveal some of the most intimate details of a person’s life — whether you’ve visited a psychiatrist, whether you went to an A.A. meeting, who you might date,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, who has proposed bills to limit the collection and sale of such data, which are largely unregulated in the United States.
“It’s not right to have consumers kept in the dark about how their data is sold and shared and then leave them unable to do anything about it,” he added.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 12 2018, @09:33PM
Florida: the advanced course.
Red tide used to be a southwest coast thing only for a little while in the summers - thanks to the current water temperature levels, it is lasting much longer with a much wider range. Growing up, we'd just not go to the beaches when red tide was in. Today, I live toward the North end of the state and so we don't go out of our way to go to places where it is, when it is.
Hurricane - far preferable to earthquakes and/or tsunami, or blizzard. Days to weeks of advanced notice, everyone understands why you're taking off work/leaving with minimal notice, 95% of the time all the preparation is for nothing. We've had 3 significant storms actually hit us in Florida the last 40 years, Andrew was a bad one, but Irma and Matthew were a night of wind and a few days without power. When we lived in Houston (for less than 3 years), we were in the Rita evacuation - and that's what sucks, when your house is forecast to be underwater due to storm surge. Solution: have a house out of the storm surge zone.
Too many old people - this was Manatee County when I was a kid, highest death rate per capita in the nation: old age. That was a town where not only would one old geezer pull out right in front of you on a 50mph road doing 5mph, two of them would - one from each side - blocking both lanes, forcing a hard braking slow from 50mph to 5, and after they realized what they had done they would both cackle with glee and continue down the road at 8mph for the next mile, creating a huge backup. Solution: go somewhere that isn't Naples, Sarasota, Bradenton, Century City, and the other walking dead zones. P.S. the old people are worse than just being blind, deaf, and physically incapable of holding their heads high enough to see over the steering wheel - the slightly younger ones get together and pass local ordinances to thwart just about anything that looks like young people having a good time.
🌻🌻 [google.com]