But absent a subpoena Google won't disclose location information to third persons?
How depressing. Years ago in a job tracking deals somewhere, I always kept more data than was strictly required, because I knew people would eventually ask for it.
I came to realize that once you can store information, you will store it, and once you store it, you will use it. There are no exceptions except by luck. So if we really want privacy as we should, then it's urgent to turn off GPS / location services on our devices, but it's also not nearly enough.
We simply have to get serious about making it technologically impossible for devices to track certain information. We might give up some convenience, but it will not kill us, and will actually make it stronger. How nice to be able to intuitively sense where we are, or to remember a phone number! We have big brains, we should use them.
Until we commit to making some data uncollectible, we will be exploited and even victimized over and over. Like someone at that job said to me once, cigarette (illegally) smoldering in her hand, "Get out while you still can!"
4
It would be helpful if writers like Mr. Herrman added a little more perspective when using pronouns like 'me' and 'you' when referring to tech. Google and all the other apps that run as net connected services on your device do not track 'you' (or 'me'). They track the device. To alleviate misgivings about intrusion or surveillance one need only swap their device with someones else's. Out here in Silicon Valley we are starting to have 'Phone Swap' parties where we simply trade our phone between willing participants.
Google and any other company that can monetize 'our' location data will track the device no matter how much 'we' protest. Trying to get them to stop doing this when there is so much money to be made is an exercise in futility. However, by swapping devices 'we' are letting them know they are tracking a device, not 'us'.
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My laptop rarely travels more than 2 meters. My cell phone is a stupid phone. If I'm out and about and want to know where the location of the Marianas Trench or any information about what be be found there, I get someone else to look it up on their phone/device. At work, I use the company computer for everything including occasionally looking at women's underwear (don't worry, it is work related).
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This story attempts turn Orwellian evil into a tale of personal discovery. In doing so, this story is complicit in evil: it is trying to normalize what is unacceptable. "Where I saw a surveillance file, he saw biography." You think that this kind of upper-middle-class navel-gazing will be enough to brainwash people?
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I think the point is that this technology is a two-edged sword.
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To put your physical location available to interested parties is a Federal crime.
Right?
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Google and selfies replacing memory?
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There is no privacy any longer. That right became a privilege and we are all now under the proverbial microscope. Sad.
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Every moment you spend in public is recorded. Why are we concerned or in shock about our public movements? Just live transparent and you will be just fine!
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@JustSaying
Until they perfect the invisibility cloak, we can't live transparent.
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@JustSaying, if you are being monitored, you are not free or safe. Not in the physical sense. Not in the political sense.
The dullest and most uncreative societies are the ones that are most watched.
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Am I understanding this correctly?
Theo Patt created Location History Visualizer to allow people concerned about their privacy to see what data Google was collecting, is using that same Google data to violate their privacy????
Your smart phone is just like wearing an ankle bracelet that records your every move. It records what you are doing and whom you are doing it with 24/7. If that bothers you, your only defense is to remove the battery from your phone.
It's not called a "smart phone" for nothing!
6
Every other day I go to a fitness center a couple miles up the road from my house, returning about an hour and a half later. Recently I started receiving a map from Google of my daily comings & goings. It showed my trips to the gym but instead of the drive home, it had me (most of the time) shooting straight across the bay the gym borders on over to a small village I've never been to or even heard of. Obviously, even Google is capable of producing buggy software. That is, unless a bird borrowed my phone while I was working out.
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In addition to turning location tracking off, or denying that permission to apps, people can also leave their phones off or (gasp!) at home. Google can't track you (yet!) if you're not using any Google services.
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@RPCV And if something happens, and you wish to God someone knew where you were, you'll regret your choices.
Think of the people who ran off an unused road in a snowstorm and were buried somewhere in a ditch. Don't you suppose they wish their 'tracker' had been working then? There's a trade-off for everything, but a fatal choice will give you plenty of time to think deeply about your 'privacy.' How and when did we become so suspicious of everything?
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@barbara jackson, it should be a choice. At this time, the choice is being made for you. Use of commercial services shouldn't have baggage.
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