Google Starts Tracking Retail Store Visits On Android and iOS

recoiledsnake writes with news of Google tracking a bit more of your life. From the article: "Google is beta-testing a program that uses smartphone location data to determine when consumers visit stores, according to agency executives briefed on the program by Google employees. Google then connects these store visits to Google searches conducted on smartphones. If someone conducts a Google mobile search for 'screwdrivers,' for instance, a local hardware store could bid to have its store listing served to that user. By pairing that person's location data with its database of store listings, Google can see if the person who saw that ad subsequently visited the store.It is easiest for Google to conduct this passive location tracking on Android users, since Google has embedded location tracking into the software. Once Android users opt in to location services, Google starts collecting their location data as continuously as technologically possible."

Comments

surprised, yet not surprised.

[noh8rz10]

and the noose tightens a little bit more...

Re:surprised, yet not surprised.

[srmalloy]

Yet another reason not to opt-in to data collection...

Re:surprised, yet not surprised.

[BasilBrush]

Apple guidelines do not require apps to NOT phone home... in fact there was a big flap about that just recently... iOS apps tracking people in ways that they did not approve.

Wrong.

"4.1 Apps that do not notify and obtain user consent before collecting, transmitting, or using location data will be rejected"

Android app guidelines are actually stricter than Apple's. You have to explicitly consent to EVERY phone service that is accessed by an app: not just location but accelerometers, compass, notifications, wifi, phone data, etc.

a) It's a poorer system. It's pre-approval, on mass, which means the user doesn't know why an app needs access to resources before approving them. iOS seeks approval at the time of requiring the resource, enabling the user to know what the resource is needed for.

b) There is no such limitation on Google on Android, because Google don't have to do it from within an app, and therefore not within a sandbox.

Re:you can turn off tracking

[noh8rz10]

and google obliges!!

why would you think that they may any attention to your privacy settings? have you hired a team of lawyers to review their TOCs? they ignored my safari privacy settings.

Re:Thank god it's Google

[93 Escort Wagon]

I seem to remember that the "Do no evil" thing was coined by Marissa Meyer.

She's also the one who said there'd never, ever be ads on the Google.com main page - which is now happening.

I'm not a huge fan of hers, but it is interesting to note that some of these philosophical changes at Google coincided with her apparently being expelled from the inner circle at the company.