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Google Map App's Version of Anonymity Might Violate EU Privacy Laws
Ars Technica reports that Google's map application for iOS, however popular it might be with users, raises red flags with European regulators, who maintain that it by default does not sufficiently safeguard user privacy as required by EU privacy rules. Ars quotes Marit Hansen of Germany's Independent Centre for Privacy Protection on why: "Hansen's main gripe is that Google's use of 'anonymous' is misleading. 'All available information points to having linkable identifiers per user," she told Computerworld. Hansen added this would allow Google to track several location entries, thus leading to her assumption that Google's 'anonymous location data' would be considered 'personal data' under the European law."
LOL. Seriously?
if you ask google for directions for a to b then they need to know what a and b are.
True, but they don't need to know who is asking nor that the same person five minutes earlier searched for adult stores.
On Android, I can turn off all the "location" services anytime I'm not using GPS. Saves the battery from being eaten by GPS. Does iPhone give this option?
You define private=secret. I agree with your definition, but many in Europe consider "private" something that should be respected by others, even if they know (by which means is irrelevant for them). Example: If you are openly gay or lesbian, that's a "private" matter, and shouldn't change your chances for getting a job, adopting a child, or influence which ads you see. Let me repeat: I like your definition better than the other one, but I understand both sides of the argument.
Or if you are irritated by a countries laws, don't do business there.
Perhaps you don't care, but I do.
Have anybody ever asked you for directions? Please tell me the exact time and date, where he or she was before and when after. This can even be a person close to you.
You can't? Google can and that is why you should not compare individual situations with the ones that are done by companies who use a database.
The fact that you do not care about your privacy does not stop me fighting for it.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
"SOP" and "no one should be surprised at this" do not constitute legal defences. I don't think anyone is surprised at this—but it's still a quandary.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
What, exactly, is stopping someone from keeping a list of people who ask for directions in person?
I'm guessing you've never smelled a vagina.
A blind man passes by a fish counter.
"Hello Ladies!"
They call themselves Independent Centre for Privacy Protection, so they hardly have an unbiased opinion here.
*sigh* Does anyone even read the fucking summary any more?
The problem is that when you ask to "anonymous", your data is not actually anonymized. They can send directions for getting from A to B and then discard all personally identifying information, which is what a normal person would expect if they selected "anonymous".
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
They may well be willing to live with bad maps in exchange for higher privacy.
I fail to see how privacy has anything to do with providing good maps or directions? Isn't it just Graph Theory? Whether it is you or me that is asking for directions from point A to point B, the fact that you know stuff about me or not, does change the results... (or at least, it shouldn't)
Whatever happened to objectivity? Explain to me a scenario in which you get a different route from A to B than I the one get? Why would this ever be a good thing?
It appears to me that you have bought into the fact that in order to do anything 'good' or 'well done', it needs tracking of who is requesting the service. I have yet to see any type of evidence for this opinion.
which is what a normal person would expect if they selected "anonymous".
On Slashdot there are two models of anonymity.
1) AmiMoJo is a pseudonym. We don't know your real name, but we can tie together your posts to learn a fair amount about you.
2) Anonymous Coward. Every post is separate. You never know which ACs are the same person.
For Google maps, people would expect type 2. What they get is type 1.
EU laws tend to protect the individual, while the US laws tend to protect those in power
...which is sad given U.S. polemic about freedom and liberty.
Someone had to do it.
I have to say I was surprised at how insistent the new iOS application is at trying to determine your location. Every time you go into it it asks for location services to be turned on. You can skip by it, but that would be the type of setting that with other programs would be a choice only made once, not pestering every time.
It is very clear that google are obsessed about knowing locations to enable them to tie and link you to services and advertising. AFAICT though the circle can only be completed if you are logged into google services on iOS â" then they can tie the ID to an account â" otherwise they will have to fall back to IP addresses which I am guessing they wouldn't do too routinely as it is not going to be all that reliable (shared addresses etc.).
I paid $45 a month for unlimited data, text, phone on the Blackberry. Now I pay $40 a month for unlimited data, text, phone on an Android. My costs have been lower than what you propose. Until very recently, there were no cheap unlimited plans for iPhone.
I'm not Belgian nor French.
And also unlikely the AC I replied to. Anyone mistyping p for m will very likely use a French or Belgian keyboard - on all other keyboards (including Dvorak and Maltron), the two are way too far apart.
Why different routes? Simple either by a setting or by learning your travel habits it learns that you prefer the shortest route possible, while I prefer the fastest route possible. For example I can be to work in 30 minutes if I drive a route that is 28 miles long with approx 25 of those miles on the interstate, that's the fastest route. Or I can choose the shortest route, it will usually take me about 35 minutes to get to work, but is only 23 miles long. five miles may not seem like much and not worth the five minutes but that's a quarter of a gallon of gas each way (okay a little less due to the efficiency of freeway driving versus having to stop frequently for lights and stop signs.) but that roughly half gallon of $3.50 a gallon gas each day adds up to a decent savings over time. That is one reason for differing routes. I use Waze for navigation and it has a setting to choose between fastest and shortest route. Google may have a similar setting or it may try and learn your habits (like many other Google products do) to determine the routing you would prefer.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
It's a mapping application, why would it not request you turn on the location services every time you use it.
It should obviously ask at first. But if you said no, the app is notified, and to ask again every time when the user said no is pretty rude.
It's greatest functionality is only available when location services are on.
Knowing where YOU are on a map is for most people a secondary service. Primarily map applications are used to find where something else is on a map, then people can just follow roads to it. It makes it somewhat more difficult if your relative position is not also indicated, but not really for anyone that simply reads the names of the streets they are passing.
When I used Google Maps on the web (even on my iPhone) I never allowed it my location.
Waze does the same thing in both IOS and Android
Are you sure about that? If you disallow your location it asks every launch? Yes it would ask the first time, but the issue is asking every time.
but most users these days are pulling these apps up for navigation purposes.
Not true for myself or anyone I know, and does not require your location to be enabled since you can drop a pin for your starting point to ask for a route.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Meh - seems like a ridiculous standard to hold any GPS provider to - "I want turn by turn directions, and for you to redirect me when I make a wrong turn, but I don't want you to know where I'm located or where I'm headed".
Does it seem so odd to not want a GPS provider to know that you specifically go there every year on November 14th at 9am?
Or to have a profile that can predict exactly when you will be at work any day of the year after sampling your movements for a decade?
All of that is easy to do with what Google collects by default.
And before you and others start, Apple does not have that data on you because it does not store details of your request permanently.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Welcome stations (Rest Areas) DO ask you to fill in your name and address when asking for directions. Just sayin'.
The freeway costs less in gasoline. You'll get about twice the mileage on the freeway as you do in town, depending on how many stop signs and traffic lights there are, how they're timed, and how you drive. When you're at that long red light you're sitting here getting 0 mpg.
My car has an in-dash mileage computer, I get 27-33 on the freeway and 13-20 in the city, depending on lights and traffic.
Free Martian Whores!
Not that big a difference, with my truck I actually get about 18 mpg on the freeway and 15-16 in city driving. If I was driving a greater distance it the freeway bonus would be greater, also the shorter route and the faster route are both on the same stretch of freeway for about a third of the route which reduces the freeway savings even more. Basically to go freeway I have to go past the location and then backtrack a little bit. Whereas the shorter route I get off the freeway earlier and cut the corner to the location.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.