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Google Sued For Tracking Users' Locations
RedEaredSlider writes "Two Android phone users are suing Google for $50 million in the wake of revelations that their phones might be tracking their locations. The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on April 27, is seeking class-action status. The plaintiffs, Julie Brown and Kayla Molaski, are residents of Oakland County. The two say in the suit that Google's privacy policy did not say that the phones broadcast their location information. Further, they say Google knew that most users would not understand that the privacy policy would allow for Google to track users' locations."
Apple was sued for their location tracking last week. According to Boy Genius Report, iOS tracking will be addressed in version 4.3.3, which is due out within a couple weeks.
There is a lot of money to be made in knowing where a user is. For Google it is a great advertising opportunity. By their own admission they are an advertising company. Put location gathering capabilities in a device made by such an advertiser and isn't it common sense that they may try to gather location information?
this mandatory "give phone makers your location all the time" thing has got to be put down.
...doesn't it tell you upon first startup of _every_ Android phone that Google is going to be tracking your location ("sending anonymous location statistics"), and that you can turn it off if you want, but you won't be able to use apps and features that require it? It's not buried somewhere in the TOS -- it's an entire screen that you have to go through upon setting up an Android phone.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
On Android, you have to MANUALLY TURN ON network-location-based services (they are disabled by default), and when you do so, you are given a warning that anonymized information will be collected by Google. The only way you could be unaware of this "tracking" is if you failed to read the warning before tapping "agree," and that's hardly Google's fault. This isn't some sprawling 100-page EULA with the warning buried in the middle, either. It's two flipping sentences.
Just another story of idiots trying to make easy money by suing a corporation.
their phones might be tracking their locations
Might? Might be tracking their locations? Sounds like they don't even know if it is or not...
The accurate term that should be used in the TOS is "location data" and not just "location statistics". "Data" would contain (precise or approximate) location coordinates while "statistics" should contain only numbers pertaining to locations e.g. "user x was located within 100 meters of location y during month z".
The end user may read the TOS in detail but my bet is that he does not understand what he reads.
There is a mandate in the US that states that cell phones must be tracked for 911 purposes. So Google must collect the info for 911 to use. Giving it to advertising companies is a different story.
There is a lot of money to be made in knowing where a user is. For Google it is a great advertising opportunity. By their own admission they are an advertising company. Put location gathering capabilities in a device made by such an advertiser and isn't it common sense that they may try to gather location information?
which is why 50 million would be cheap if it's a class action settlement.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Reading a EULA is like reading a paperback novel. Only it's written in Sanskrit and there's no character development, plot, or even anything interesting happening. Seriously, they write those things knowing damn well that NOBODY WILL EVER READ THEM. Heck, most people don't even possess the wherewithall or legal chops to read them. When you're standing in a queue in Best Buy you rarely have time for such things. And then when you get the thing home I'm sure the first thing you want to do is sit and swot over 80 pages of legal blurb and jargon then spend 2 weeks formulating the holes and headroom for exploitation in that contract before you sign your life away. If we all did this there wouldn't be a single consumer in this country...guaranteed!! The average employment contract is simpler than an iPod contract, WTH?
Plus, by the time you've read the EULA it's changed anyway so what's the point?
I don't even own an Android phone and I've been damaged $100miliion worth just listening to the suffering. (Accident witness stress syndrome).
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
On my iPhone 4, I can't do that, no matter how badly I want to.
Only because you are ignorant of how to do so. You can disable it on iOS just like in Android.
When I first turned on my Android phone, it told me that by default location services is turned off. It then asked if I wanted to turn it on, and if I did, would I also like to help Google out by contributing nearby towers and wifi networks to help improve the service. All optional, and all clearly laid out. And, you can't even argue that users feel forced, because you can still get the location-based features without allowing Google to collect the data, since the two options are separated. Additionally, it's also fine-grained and application/website specific. Even IF you enable Location Services for google websites, if a different website asks for it, you get another prompt. Similarly, each application besides the browser that wants that data will also require a prompt. (At least on my phone it does).
Now, if a manufacturer or carrier is changing the behavior from default-off to default-on, that's not Google's fault. In fact, Google might even prevent this. They have a number of manufacturer rules about user privacy and experience and that sort of thing. While they release all of their stuff open-source (eventually) so they cannot prevent a manufacturer from making such a phone, they audit phones and do not allow non-complaint handsets onto the Google Market, which has a pretty negative impact on the value of a non-compliant phone. Now, I don't know if Google prevents the data collection from being changed to on-by-default, so who knows...certainly some people have claimed to never have been asked, but I've used both an HTC Legend and a Samsung Galaxy S, and both of those defaulted to off, with a prompt during the initial setup. I suppose that maybe some carrier employees do the initial setup for you? But this question comes after you've entered your gmail account and password. So, besides being the store's fault, not Google's, why are you so concerned with privacy when you gave the minimum wage employee at the AT&T store your email address and password?
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
It is possible that Android is sending more information than I am aware of, but the only thing I have heard of is the network based location service.
The way this works is that the phone looks at what WiFi base stations you can see near you. It then sends a list of these to a server that has a database of the location of a bunch these base stations. The server looks up the locations of the stations you are near and estimates your location from that.
It is impossible for the server to tell you where you are without knowing where you are! The only other option would be for the server to continuously distribute gigabytes of WiFi database information to the phones, most of which would never be used. Querying for just the information needed is a better design.
And as others have already pointed out, this service is off by default, and gives a clearly understandable warning when turned on.
Except until the next update comes out, you can't actually stop it from collecting the data even if you turn it off. That's what he meant.