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Google Is Testing a Program That Tracks Your Purchases In the Real World

Posted by samzenpus on from the show-us-what-your-bought dept.

cold fjord writes "Business Insider reports, Google is beta-testing a program that tracks users' purchasing habits by registering brick-and-mortar store visits via smartphones, according to a report from Digiday. Google can access user data via Android apps or their Apple iOS apps, like Google search, Gmail, Chrome, or Google Maps. If a customer is using these apps while he shops or has them still running in the background, Google's new program pinpoints the origin of the user data and determines if the customer is in a place of business."

35 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Misleading title... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Nowhere in the article does it say it can track what you buy, there's no way an app can track purchases you made outside of your phone unless it's somehow linked to your bank/credit card account... this is just to track where you were. Basically, Google is stalking you, nothing new there.

    1. Re:Misleading title... by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Nope, only the credit card companies do that...

      Why do you think the big push was made to give everyone a VISA or MC debit card? It provides the banks with an incredible amount of information about you that they can then sell.

      Given that my debt cards pay me rewards and I pay them nothing, frankly I don't mind, it isn't like my trips to Walmart are secret or anything.

      Another reason why Google should want their Wallet to become used everywhere. Imagine the treasure trove of information if they don't even have to get into the V/MC business, yet can see "everything" you buy because you use your phone as a wallet.

      Frankly, for them to have that much information about me, I'd like the phone for free. :)

    2. Re:Misleading title... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Its nice how people sell privacy for a phone.

      Kinda like how there is a quote on bash.org about how people were asked if they would give up their voting right for an ipod, and the best thing to do would be give those that say yes an ipod.

      Before you say voting right and privacy are something totally different, they are pretty closely related. Given the number of laws, everybody breaks one, if not more. If you have no privacy, all those things can be known. Maybe you broke the speed limit one moment, your phone could record that, without privacy, the state can use that recorded data and prosecute you.
      Remember how you can also lose voting rights after having been convicted of a felony. So no privacy means politicians can take away the voting rights of whoever they chose, based on that everybody but the very careful people break laws (for example laceys act says you can't break the law of any country, ensure you break no muslim laws).

      But its just a purchase in walmart...
      And tomorrow its just your rape fantasies that somehow get you convicted. Rights are something you fight for every day, not just once and be done with it.

    3. Re:Misleading title... by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 2

      I wouldn't give it up for an ipod, but I could see myself giving it up for a material good. Frankly the US elections just piss me off more than anything, because no matter what you do the same shit keeps getting elected. Politics is just a really cheesy soap opera.

      Voting therefore is worth nothing, so I'd trade nothing for something.

      You know what's funny is I've actually gone out of my way to deliberately not register to vote, and somehow I've managed to stay registered anyways (for early voting no less, as I keep getting early voting ballots that I just throw away.)

      --
      Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
    4. Re:Misleading title... by Animats · · Score: 2

      Why do you think the big push was made to give everyone a VISA or MC debit card? It provides the banks with an incredible amount of information about you that they can then sell.

      The funny thing is that banks don't do that much. Their merchant customers don't like their sales info being given to other merchants.

    5. Re:Misleading title... by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 2
      While I get what you're saying, another arguement could be made that we're already past that point.

      The truth is, way, way too many things are illegal, and not just minor illegal, but felonies.

      You're right, everyone breaks some law, somewhere. There is a saying, "it's a poor cop who can't find something to write you a ticket for".

      So the fact is, phones or no phones, privacy or no privacy, the real problem is the endless laws for anything and everything. If we don't get that turned back, nothing else will matter.

      Sooner or later, we'll all get embedded with chips, the "features" will be worth it to most people. You or I might not, our parents won't, but the next generation will and won't see anything wrong with it.

      Phones, technology, privacy, tracking, that isn't the issue, the issue is the power we have given government over our lives in the form of making a million things illegal. If we don't change that, it won't matter.

    6. Re:Misleading title... by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 2
      If I had anything to do that I really wanted to keep secret from the government, I sure wouldn't use any electronic form of payment.

      But the funny thing is, I doubt that cash will remain the way it is now for very long. Give it 20 years, we'll probably have government traceable credit chips to replace cash.

      It will be in the name of preventing drug dealers and criminals and money laundering and all that, but it will also make it very hard to do anything financial that the government can't detect.

    7. Re:Misleading title... by Custard+Horse · · Score: 2

      You still have control though which is the crucial point. If you revert to paying cash, your trips to Walmart are no longer being tracked.

      Let's not get too excited, Google is looking to monetise tracking information in the same was as grocery store reward cards allow the stores to mine purchase data and send you focused offers. The NSA is not interested in your buy one, get one free selections but Google is interested in directing you to their corporate clients based on where you happen to be.

      The quid pro quo is that your acceptance of such tracking does provide financial reward. This is an option of which you may wish to avail yourself.

      This is not the same as the voting and the ipod analogy not least due to the vagueness of the question. Is it one ipod for one vote or for all future votes? Were the respondent congenital idiots? All important questions..

    8. Re:Misleading title... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You may not care what you purchase at Wal-Mart, but there are a lot of people who might want that info:

      1: The local DA. Here in the US with private prisons running the show, DAs -have- to keep the beds full. Judges have to convict or else they will face an anonymous donor spending big bucks on their rival candidate. Police have a quota of how many people that need to have cuffs slapped on and hauled in.

      I remember a case a few years back where a local DA got ahold of E911 records from a phone company. There was a park that was open until dusk, but was still a popular hangout among teens after it closed. The DA got the records of whose phones were in the park after 9:00, and did a mass criminal trespass arrest using that as evidence.

      2: Private businesses. A few weeks ago, an acquaintance mentioned something on a social networking site he did in the 1990s. A few days later, he served with a notice of criminal trespass that he was banned from a store chain for life for his actions. This was done far longer than any statute of limitations for his screw-ups.

      3: The blacklist bureaus. Post that you don't want Mexican history as a requirement for graduating in US schools, you are then branded a racist for 7 years. Same if you click "like" on something asking, "why should I press 1 for English?" Find an interesting topic about firearms, and one gets flagged as a potential shooter.

      4: Thieves. It is only a matter of time before extortion and blackmail is done with the info gleaned from insecure sites and the fact that people don't give a shit about privacy. There are a lot of cases where someone mentions they are on vacation, and their house gets burglarized.

      5: Foreign agents. If you are starting a cool new business that might get the eye of someone overseas, you just might find your VC guys saying that they are not interested in funding because some guys over in Hong Kong have the exact same offering even down to the joke code names, and are making/selling it cheaper than it ever could be done in the US.

      6: Health insurance. I was browsing a business that had a humidor, and a friend snapped a picture of me in it. A week later, my health insurance company demanded I have a physical, or pay smoker's rates, plus a fee for lying to them.

      7: Car insurance. Right now, the insurance companies want a device that measures stuff off the OBD2 port. It wouldn't be surprising that they used GPS/E911 data next.

      8: Red light traps. I've seen lights that went from green to red, no yellow whatsoever on lights with cameras. Of course, unless one drives with a dash cam, there is no proof otherwise. Imagine the shit the local Roscoe Coltraine will come up with when he has access to GPS and E911 records. Local governments will love it if they can find someone went 66 in a 65 on some rural road and fine them for it. Plus, it gives excuse for finding marijuana on a vehicle and seizing it (even if there was no marijuana present, the local officer will be more than happy to provide it.) This goes hand in hand with #1. More people enmeshed in the criminal system, the more money going to lobbyists, and the worse it gets.

      When people don't give a shit about privacy, don't be surprised about the consequences. Raves getting surrounded by a SWAT team and people facing felony charges, having to pay health insurance premiums over keeping a roof over one's head, your kids going to jail for curfew violations because they stepped off school grounds during lunch, felony-hard gun charges pressed because a DA thinks you might have driven too near a school when on your way to the range and back.

      People have quite forgotten the lesson that Eastern Europe had. It has been over 20 years since the Berlin Wall fell, and people forgot how brutal a police state can be. It can easily come back, and these days people talk about revolution.

      Revolution is impossible these days (couple UAVs with VX canisters piloted by mercenary pilots will stop any organizard rebellion), so stop the loss of rights before they are gone.

  2. Dear Slashdot... by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do you still think Google is trying to stop the NSA from spying on you, when they are gathering the exact same information, and unlike the NSA, don't have any rules restricting their use.

    When will we stop saying who can and cannot spy on us and steal our personal information, and start saying that the answer is nobody. Whether you're the NSA, or you're Google, you are evil. The end.

    --
    #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    1. Re:Dear Slashdot... by m00sh · · Score: 2

      Do you still think Google is trying to stop the NSA from spying on you, when they are gathering the exact same information, and unlike the NSA, don't have any rules restricting their use.

      When will we stop saying who can and cannot spy on us and steal our personal information, and start saying that the answer is nobody. Whether you're the NSA, or you're Google, you are evil. The end.

      Or you can not use any Google products. Gmail, google maps, search etc are free so that they can advertise to you and collect data on you.

    2. Re:Dear Slashdot... by vidnet · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You:

      they are gathering the exact same information, and unlike the NSA, don't have any rules restricting their use

      The article:

      Google gets permission to do this kind of tracking when Android users opt in

      Do you really not see a difference between an experimental, opt-in location system and an international, clandestine spy program?

    3. Re:Dear Slashdot... by girlintraining · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Or you can not use any Google products. Gmail, google maps, search etc are free so that they can advertise to you and collect data on you.

      Funny story. In the early 90s a new network started being used regularily by hundreds of colleges, science labs, and educational facilities. It had been built up for military purposes as an experiment, but after building a new one, the military turned it over to the academic community. It was a global network, massively redundant, and was initially used to exchange files and e-mail. Researchers quickly developed some simple protocols to allow anyone on the network to exchange information freely with anyone else on the network. A need arose to catalog and organize the rapidly increasing number of nodes on this network, and the information just started pouring in. That network... was called the internet.

      It's original inventors hoped that this free and equal peer-based network they had built would be used to share human knowledge across cultures around the world, bringing together millions, and now billions, of people together. They never asked for money. They didn't believe in advertising revenue to support it... the people who built and maintained the network did so not out of greed, or desire for wealth, but because they genuinely believed in one of the foundational principles of science:

      Knowledge should be free.

      I know today it's just a historical footnote, that greed and the desire for wealth has created not one, but seven of the largest companies on the planet, whose sole business plans are to exploit the free exchange of information by putting up artificial barriers and charging for access to things, while spying on us and abusing the data flow... and that today, we just accept this.

      But those of us that built the network remember there are other motivations than greed... some of us still build things for others, because we want them to be free. Because we want them to have knowledge, and information -- because we understood, instinctively, that the biggest advances of the 21st century wasn't going to be in science or technology, but in an expanding concept of what it means to be human. We couldn't put it into those words, not then, but we knew it would be important that this resource remain free and open to all -- that the fastest route to human growth, worldwide, everyone, everywhere, would mean making sure knowledge was equally available. Because knowledge is power... and we knew, from tens of thousands of years of human history, that when you try to hold onto knowledge, to power, it corrupts you. It destroys you. It sucks your soul right out and pours in a neverending need for more... more what? More everything.

      And so those of us who were around back then recognize Google, and the NSA, and all these other organizations and governments for what they are: An unnatural restriction on the potential of the human race. They're strangling us with their greed. They're creating the next Dark Age... because the power imbalance between the information-rich and the information-poor is growing, exponentially. And Google is one of the central players.

      Google... is evil.

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    4. Re:Dear Slashdot... by girlintraining · · Score: 2

      Do you really not see a difference between an experimental, opt-in location system and an international, clandestine spy program?

      They're functionally identical. Every phone you buy today has the same basic EULA: All your personal data is ours, to do with as we please. Try going without a cell phone; We're expected to be wired in. Employers want cell phones. Parents want cell phones. There was an article on slashdot talking about wiring in 5 year olds. This is the future; the interconnected society. You want to be a part of society, you have internet, you have a phone -- you're connected.

      And pardon me, but considering how pervasive it is, how deeply it's integrated into our lives, and how little protection there is for all of it... an international, clandestine spy program is far better, at least from a human rights standpoint.

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    5. Re:Dear Slashdot... by girlintraining · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, it's not a footnote - it's a fairy tale. (Well, I guess legends and other fiction could appear in a footnote...)

      "In the earliest days, this was a project I worked on with great passion because I wanted to solve the Defense Department's problem: it did not want proprietary networking and it didn't want to be confined to a single network technology."
      -- Vinton Cerf

      "It's difficult to imagine the power that you're going to have when so many different sorts of data are available."
      -- Tim Berners-Lee

      "My goal wasn't to make a ton of money. It was to build good computers."
      -- Steve Wozniak

      "Artists usually don't make all that much money, and they often keep their artistic hobby despite the money rather than due to it."
      -- Linus Torvalds

      Shall I continue, or is it sufficiently obvious how wrong you are?

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    6. Re:Dear Slashdot... by girlintraining · · Score: 2

      Acquiring knowledge has generally been expensive. Libraries cost money for both the building and books. Education costs money, even if it is free to the student.

      The internet changed all of that. Acquiring knowledge now costs such a tiny, tiny amount, that we can afford to give it away to every single member of the human race... and we give up very little for the honor of doing so. As a society, we have the privilege of being able to give every single person on this planet free and total access to the collective knowledge of all of the sciences, technology, culture, all of it.

      And yet we don't. What does that say about us, as a people?

      he internet has been a wonderful resource to make knowledge easier to access, but the infrastructure costs money.

      No. Nothing costs money. A cost is something you give up. The cost of a car is all the things you could have gotten instead of the car. People often confuse the value of a thing with the price of a thing, and in a capitalist-driven society, it's hardly a surprise. The infrastructure doesn't cost money, it costs whatever we could have built instead of the infrastructure.

      Now, consider all the possible things that we could have built instead of the internet. Instead of giving free knowledge to the world. Can you think of a better way to spend that potentiality? Because I cannot. No sir, your argument does not hold.

      By a similar token the need for the NSA is an ugly reality. Not every group or society on the planet is willing to live in peace within their own borders.

      The need for an organization that keeps tabs on legitimate threats to our safety and security, yes. The NSA... in its current form, is suboptimal for that task. It has been warped and distorted by political pressure both internal and external into something that is rapidly losing its effectiveness in that capacity. We're building data centers and collecting data, but managing intelligent assets is about more than collection, it's about analytics as well. The NSA has been overburdened with information -- tasked with watching everyone, everywhere.

      It's the result of an unprecidented mass-failure of basic cognitive reasoning on the part of our entire governmental superstructure. They overvalue what they don't know, a fallacy known as the ambiguity effect. It's why we spent trillions fighting a war on terror, but we spend a mere fraction of that fighting drunk driving. They also over-value certain types of information -- a person's race, national origin, etc. All this profiling. It's been proven time and time again that the moment you develop a profile for the type of person you're looking for,.. the organization you're fighting will simply select candidates that are outside of that profile. We've created an institutional-sized case of confirmation bias with our security screening procedures. But it gets worse. The NSA is a classic example of information bias... that is, they seek information even when it's irrelevant to the choices presented. Or put another way: They're so focused on gathering more information that they've effectively paralyzed themselves.

      And this isn't the first time this has happened, even here in America. All intelligence agencies go through phases where they become complacent and the intelligence feedback cycle goes off the rails, which isn't corrected until a catastrophe. Pearl Harbor. 9/11. Aldrich Ames. "The list goes on and on." After each major shakeup, there's a refocusing and efficiency goes up... for awhile. Until it deteriorates to the point that a new crisis emerges.

      There will always be another boogieman in the closet. There will be another 9/11. Another Snowden. Another Pearl Harbor. These things cannot be prevented -- only the illusion that they can be. When we discuss how we wish to combat these yet-unseen and unknown forces, we must be mindful of how we structure our institutions, and what restrictions we pla

      --
      #fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
    7. Re:Dear Slashdot... by kilfarsnar · · Score: 2

      By a similar token the need for the NSA is an ugly reality. Not every group or society on the planet is willing to live in peace within their own borders. Seventy years ago it was Germany, Italy, and Japan. Not long after that was settled, North Korea decided it would invade South Korea. After WW2 the Soviet Union and its allies used or threatened to use military force on many occasions including in Germany, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, Berlin, Cuba. North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam. The list goes on and on. Saddam's Iraq invaded Kuwait and annexed it until the UN authorized the US and allied forces to remove Iraq's army from Kuwait. Chinese state controlled media just published maps showing targets for Chinese nuclear weapons in the US and also publicized the existence of their extensive submarine force. Russia has started probing US and European air defenses again, and has made mock nuclear attacks. Even ignoring terrorism the NSA has plenty to watch for, and will for the foreseeable future.

      There are may things limiting human potential. One of the biggest is human nature.

      I only wish you would include the United States in your estimation. The US is the largest arms dealer in the world, and has its armies in more countries than any other. Their black ops agencies have overthrown governments and trained terrorists in every corner of the globe.

      The world can indeed be a dangerous place. The United States is a major player on that world stage, and not some innocent bystander that needs to protect itself from all those other bad countries. The US needs to protect itself in the same way an organized crime family needs to protect itself. The NSA is not like Captain America, fighting for Truth and Justice. It's more like Luka Brasi.

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    8. Re:Dear Slashdot... by tibman · · Score: 2

      The President could have closed gtmo down if he wanted. Executive order, all troops redeployed elsewhere. Let congress try to run that facility without military support. It would be on their heads, not his.

      --
      http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
    9. Re:Dear Slashdot... by tibman · · Score: 2

      shhh! you'll summon APK with questions like that

      --
      http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
    10. Re:Dear Slashdot... by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 2

      It was a major campaign promise. Still hasn't been closed 5 years later. Why?

      Most likely because he's a lying politician (my use of the word "lying" may have been redundant), like most are in the two major parties. Still, fools keep voting for them.

      It isn't a perfect system, but there really are bad people in the world who want to kill us, what would you suggest doing about that?

      If it means throwing away our freedoms--as we have with the NSA, TSA, PATRIOT ACT, et al.--nothing. As far as I've heard, we're supposed to be the land of the free and the home of the brave, so I think the fact that some bogeymen were so easily able to make us discard some of the freedoms that supposedly make us 'better' is absolutely pathetic.

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
    11. Re:Dear Slashdot... by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 2

      A "good job"? Like when he didn't veto the PATRIOT ACT when he had the chance? Like when he has come out and supported the NSA numerous times?

      When it comes to things that are important to me, which are all freedom-related issues, I think Obama has done a rather bad job.

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
    12. Re:Dear Slashdot... by mcgrew · · Score: 2

      What does that say about us, as a people? That we are human beings, and humans have something called "human nature".

      Um, I'm afraid You're wrong. That theory/myth was recently smashed; there is no such thing as "human nature," only cultural nature. "All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be", as Pink Floyd so artfully puts it.

      "Money" is just an easy way to keep track of the value of "stuff"

      And you've fallen prey to exactly what the linked article was talking about. What's the value of rain? What's the value of clean air? What's the value of someone's empathy? Your values are sadly skewed.

      Obama ran in 2008 on closing the terrorist prison in Guantanamo Bay. It was a major campaign promise. Still hasn't been closed 5 years later. Why?

      Because he was blocked by Congress from sending them overseas, and blocked by the states from putting them in normal prisons.

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
  3. Why not just provide a "Tracking App" by guanxi · · Score: 3

    Why all this subterfuge? Why not just include an app called "Tracking App" on every Android phone, and include it with every iPhone download?

    If Google is right and the tracking is legitimate, what do they have to hide? Consumers will welcome it. If they (and all the other businesses and governments that track you) feel a need to keep it under the radar, then there must be a reason for that.

    1. Re:Why not just provide a "Tracking App" by faedle · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Funny, I was aware that's exactly what was going on when I turned on the Android feature that sends location data to Google. They don't exactly hide it, either, which is why I'm wondering why this story is even news. When you "check-in" or somesuch, it's doing right what it says on the tin.

      This just in: Water is wet, dogs sometimes bite, and Comcast customer service sucks.

    2. Re:Why not just provide a "Tracking App" by feral-troll · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Funny, I was aware that's exactly what was going on when I turned on the Android feature that sends location data to Google. They don't exactly hide it, either, which is why I'm wondering why this story is even news. When you "check-in" or somesuch, it's doing right what it says on the tin.

      This just in: Water is wet, dogs sometimes bite, and Comcast customer service sucks.

      Funny, when I tell the average consumer that when they use Google Maps it streams information about their movements back to Google who archives that data and sells it, most of them are surprised. When you tell them that Google, Facebook, et al. track their browsing habits even when they are not logged in to those services... same reaction. You may be perfectly aware of the parasitic relationship you are getting into with Google but the average consumer is not, hence the outrage over the NSA surveillance. When the shitstorm over that dies down the media might just turn the spotlight on Google, Facebook et al. and people will be just as creeped out.

  4. Who thinks like the person who wrote that title? by OhANameWhatName · · Score: 2, Funny

    Tracks Your Purchases In the Real World

    I do all of my shopping in Narnia. Apart from avoiding Google, I save an immense amount of money.

  5. why bother? by bdabautcb · · Score: 2

    I've been on a S3 for a while, if they want to make money from my shopping habits, good luck. I haven't made a significant purchase based on advertising since I was fifteen and thought Chester Cheetoo was the coolest cat around. I understand the slippery slope argument, but if someone thinks they can turn a profit because I bought some work clothes at goodwill and then a sandwich at char-hut, go for it.

    --
    Koalas. They're telepathic. Plus, they control the weather. -Margaret
    1. Re:why bother? by faedle · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's the glory of what they're doing. They CAN make money off of you knowing that you bought work clothes at Goodwill and a sandwich at Char-hut. If you can't figure out how, you don't completely understand what they're actually doing.

    2. Re:why bother? by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

      That's the glory of what they're doing. They CAN make money off of you knowing that you bought work clothes at Goodwill and a sandwich at Char-hut. If you can't figure out how, you don't completely understand what they're actually doing.

      That information is extremely valuable to advertisers.

      Right now, advertisers are paying twice as much money for an iOS ad impression over an Android ad impression. Even given the fact iOS is being outsold 4:1 by Android.

      It's valuable information for Google because it can mean that Google won't run high paying ads to you, though it could mean those ad-supported apps may get more obnoxious for you because they're forced to run low paying ads while a big spender might only see barely one ad because they just see the big paying one.

      And yes, remember Google owns practically the entire online and mobile advertising space.

  6. Re:I for one welcome my Google overlords, by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Big Brother is here, and he's a Capitalist Tyrant.

    Isn't it terribly inconvenient how market research data, which is so commercially useful that companies collect it out of self interest, technological transaction data, which are necessary to do things like route packets, packages, and phone calls, and the data that would be of interest to a surveillance state are so very similar?

    That's really why capitalism has such a bright future as a surveillance dystopia. Anybody with enough cash can hire thugs and informants; but can your commie, or your fascist, operate a comprehensive network of informants at a profit, rather than as a massive drain on the consumer economy that might keep the mobs at bay? Anyone with enough thugs and informants can make tracking collars mandatory; but can they make wearers lovingly recharge them nightly, and pay for customized ringtones?

    Could even Big Brother get Winston to rack up some credit card debt to finance a 50" HD telescreen, out of a desire to consume premium content in greater comfort and luxury than his lesser neighbors? Bah. Amateurs, the lot of them.

  7. Misleading criticism of title... by globaljustin · · Score: 2

    You may be **grammatically** correct that Google **technically** is tracking your location not your purchases...

    But you're giving Google a free pass here:

    Basically, Google is stalking you, nothing new there.

    "meh, privacy is dead" right? right??

    wrong.

    Privacy rights, and Google's accountability to them are as alive as **we the people demand**

    We don't have to accept that new tech features must invariably require chipping away at our privacy until Google has enough data to extrapolate anything they want....

    You must understand that Google ***IS DEFINITELY*** intending to track people's purchases using this tracking. They do what is known in the industry as "data analysis" where you compare two or more data sets that overlap to fill in missing pieces of information.

    Google doesn't need to have access to your financial transactions to track your spending habits.

    If you see that as an violation of privacy you don't have to just pretend "privacy is dead"....you can **actually** do something about it...it's called democracy...

    --
    Thank you Dave Raggett
    1. Re:Misleading criticism of title... by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 2
      Turning GPS service "off" is just a software command that looks nice, do you really think you can disable it, short of ripping the GPS chip out of the phone?

      If this is a concern of yours, don't have a cell phone, that is, frankly, your only real option. Everything else is just wishful thinking.

  8. weird false equivalence by globaljustin · · Score: 2

    I am against both Google and the NSA's data collection policies, but your vitriol is weirdly misplaced

    See, from an engineering and legal perspective, the data the NSA and Google gather are not, as you say

    they are gathering the exact same information, and unlike the NSA, don't have any rules restricting their use.

    Now, there is so much wrong with this, but in the greater sense you and I share alot of common ground. We probably agree overall...

    No, what bothers me is how uninformed your opinions are...it's distracting. You need to learn a bit about IT engineering, networking, telcommunications, and things like the Patriot Act.

    I'm not saying take a college class...just wikipedia...

    read the wikipedia on the Patriot Act...then read the wikipedia on T-com engineering. Maybe have a look at how a big data center works from a technical perspective. Wired, etc. have good articles available.

    Really....read up. You're right in your heart but you come off as a conversational succubus.....your kind of trolling, the kind that is right at heart, really can derail a value-added discussion

    Yes, the NSA does use Google's data...there may be overlap in the raw data...but that is not at all near what you are babbling about....READ UP AND EDUCATE YOURSELF

    --
    Thank you Dave Raggett
  9. Re:I for one welcome my Google overlords, by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

    Oh, I don't mean to imply that it's one-sided, that's part of why it works so well. While dramatic (and sometimes fun for its own sake) having to use brute force to compel obedience is relatively expensive and unreliable. It may be a sign of strength; but it's also a sign of incompetence.

    The power of the consumer-driven surveillance system is that, at the same time as it provides amazing amounts of information, it is largely seen as non-oppressive, even a collection of features worth paying for. And, unless you just like strutting around like Herr Commandant, a set of mechanisms that is both powerful and has lots of fun gizmos is far superior to one that requires lots of cracking down.

  10. Glad I don't have GAAPS / PrivacyGuard++ by EmagGeek · · Score: 2

    I don't run GAAPS on my android phone, and CyanogenMod's Privacy Guard blocks app access to location data, your phonebook, and other private data.