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My Location the Next Google Privacy Controversy?
theodp writes "While Google boasts one of its Privacy Principles is making the collection of personal information transparent, even techies are left guessing about what's going on behind the scenes of certain products. The American Dictator points out that Google's Wi-Fi collection efforts don't stop with its Street View cars, offering up this explanation of Google's My Location: 'When you allow Google to "know your location," what you are really agreeing to is to send to Google's computers your Wi-Fi environment — not only the name of the Wi-Fi hotspot you are logged into, but also the names and signal strengths of every Wi-Fi hotspot around you. In other words, the same things that those Google Street View cars were sucking up as they drove by your house.' So, will changes in privacy attitude prompt changes in Latitude?"
This method of radio-location is not special or unusual in any way. If anything, it is rather common and not even innovative on google's part. Several firms have exited for _years_ which focus on location based services as determined by nearby hotspots. Also, Latitude is littered with warnings about the nature of the service, and the fact that your location information will be sent back to Google. Of course, this is even less interesting when you consider the fact that your cell phone carrier already knows all of this information all the time and always has, which nobody makes any fuss about whatsoever.
That makes it public. Google is merely asking you to forward some public information to them. You may, if you wish, decline.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I completely agree, it's surprising how many people think that when they send something to EVERYONE, that they have no ability to tell EVERYONE that "that was a secret. don't tell anybody, K?"
How many people have scanners these days?
How many people have the Internet?
Now do you understand why there might be concern about putting the dispatches in a central location on the Internet?
There are a lot of idiots out there, and they can really waste your time. That really is the biggest pitfall of open information, imo.
> ...I am concerned about them capturing packet data.
Then don't broadcast it.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
You've said that half a dozen times or so.
There really is a fundamental difference between traditional surveillance and cheap, mass technological data collection (At a minimum, cost!). It makes sense to acknowledge that difference in our laws, rather that just spitting on people when they don't understand how pervasive the monitoring is, or what the full implications of their actions may be.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
No ISP is going to give Google access to their address database.
No residential ISP. Commercial guys usually fill out the WHOIS form when they assign addresses. Otherwise ARIN gets agitated and may or may not give you more IP space when you ask for it. (Response will read something like: You want another /18? WTF? whois claims your most recent /18 is only 1% utilized?)
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Wait, you mean those words I type into the text field actually GO somewhere?
I thought Google worked like something out of Harry Potter.
I'm in the US, but today Google shows my location as a town in Norway. Last week it said I was in Malaysia. Every so often it puts me in my actual office location. I'm guessing my corporate proxy has something to do with the confusion, since I'm not using wifi on my laptop.
Yeah, IP-based location is very poor, often choosing the wrong city. Wifi can vary from bad to good, but it's often reasonably accurate (e.g. to a few blocks).
I once had wifi location tell me that I was hundreds of miles away - I was at an exhibition, and I assume that the wifi access points were used at different exhibition and conference halls throughout the country.
"I don't understand how Google tracking wifi networks is bad for me."
They, or someone with access to their data, might abuse the information. If Google were a small, local company, doing this sort of thing for a single locale, it would not be so terrible -- but they are a huge, international operation, tying information together from all over the world, and using that information to determine more details about a person than that person agreed to reveal. There is a very high potential for abuse, and this is one of those situations where once the abuse starts, it will already be too late.
Palm trees and 8