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Android Users Need To Delete Google Maps and Google Play If They Don't Want Their Locations Tracked (theregister.co.uk)
Kieren McCarthy, reporting for The Register: Google, it seems, is very, very interested in knowing where you are at all times. Users have reported battery life issues with the latest Android build, with many pointing the finger at Google Play -- Google's app store -- and its persistent, almost obsessive need to check where you are. Amid complaints that Google Play is always switching on GPS, it appears Google has made it impossible to prevent the app store from tracking your whereabouts unless you completely kill off location tracking for all applications. You can try to deny Google Play access to your handheld's location by opening the Settings app and digging through Apps -> Google Play Store -> Permissions, and flipping the switch for "location." But you'll be told you can't just shut out Google Play services: you have to switch off location services for all apps if you want to block the store from knowing your whereabouts. It's all or nothing, which isn't particularly nice. This is because Google Play services pass on your location to installed apps via an API. The store also sends your whereabouts to Google to process. Google doesn't want you to turn this off.
I love Big Brother. Don't you love Big Brother? Maybe you need re-education.
How about using Fake GPS location spoofer? Is it able to send fake coordinates to Google Play, too?
Give XPrivacy a try.
Or you could just trust Google....
The power button still exists (unless apple deems it is not necessary in the next iphone).
BTW, apple and MS location track as much as they can too.
Silence is a state of mime.
If I have my GPS turned off, is it still recording my location? Or is the article saying that it records your location if the GPS is on, even if you're not actively using Maps? Big difference there.
Am I missing something, or there's no link to the actual article?
I thought /. had editors ...
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
I followed the instructions to turn off google play's permission to use my location, but this was already turned off. Am I missing something? The article only says the "latest Android build".
It won't be long before they start selling intrusive ads based on location, time of day, etc. It's around lunch time and you're walking on the street? Your phone buzzes to recommend a restaurant for you. That kind of advertisement could be sold to restaurants based on location, time of day, implied salary, whether you frequent a competitor, etc.
I must admit this news disturbs me, but I don't consider iOS a viable alternative. Would be nice to have a mobile OS without a walled garden that didn't track you.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
To be obnoxious, I've never actually given any app my location on my phone. And I use Google Maps often enough. But rather than using it for navigation, I use it for -- you'll never guess -- looking at maps. No facepalm needed!
Granted being able to see where you are on the map is half of the usefulness.
But just being able to dynamically sort through maps at any zoom level has a lot of value. When I'm in a city I can look at cross-streets and see where I am, then use the map to navigate by just being aware of what upcoming streets (and the few streets before that) are named so I know where to turn...
But I agree it stinks you can't tell some other application to keep away from location data without disabling map location also.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There are non-google app stores.
This isn't so much a question about the rights or wrongs of Google deciding they have the right to track a user's phone if it runs Android, but more about the implications for the user.
The introductory text, above, suggests that the Google Store will send your location data to Google, *without giving you the choice*. Now, if it also does this without explicitly telling you, without explicitly asking you to acknowledge and agree, then what happens if your monthly data usage cap is exceeded thanks to this "network chatty" application?
What will *definitely* happen is that your mobile phone provider will slap you with a usage charge, which may contain a punitive "excess" for going above an agreed limit. Will Google indemnify all Android phone users against excess charges?
I can't believe that they wouldn't have considered this, so either usage is trivially low, and/or there really is an opt-out with warning. If not this could be another class action waiting to happen...
And they are useless, and frequently riddled with malware. I use Google services because they have a value to me. Samsung services (for instance) do not.
I don't want carob instead of chocolate just to "prove a point". I bought an Android phone because I prefer it to Apple's walled garden, and have more freedom to use my hardware as I choose.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
If you think iOS isn't phoning home with your location, I have a bridge to sell you. Same goes for ANY phone, since of course the carriers can detect your location from cell towers anyway (and they are, they just are not monetizing it as well as Google).
This is why I've said over and over... Anyone who complains about Windows 10 thinking that it is the "big bad" when it comes to privacy simply hasn't been paying attention...
That doesn't make Windows 10 spying all good, it just puts it into the same league as Apple and Google...
I'd rather be tracked and be able to use my device the way I want than the alternative.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Have you ever wondered how Google Maps has near-real-time display of traffic maps on surface streets that don't have monitoring equipment set up by the DOT? *THIS* is exactly how they do it. They track the relative speed and location of smart phones traveling down various streets to figure out current traffic patterns. This is simply another case of giving up a piece of privacy for a free service in return. Love it or hate it, that's how this shit works.
Apple is actually pretty transparent about which apps are accessing your location (or, it seems to be). I noticed the location services icon a few times when I thought it didn't make sense, but I was able to see which app had recently used the location services and disabled it. Problem solved. The annoying location thing with Apple is that Siri can't search the web without location turned on (or at least, she couldn't the last time I tried, which was a relatively long time ago). So, I don't use Siri for that. The App Store doesn't access my location services as far as I can tell.
We can locate you within a meter based on cell tower logs, actually
Even with your flip-phone
Even when you think it's "off"
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But what if you are not using maps. Can't you turn off location services to maps when maps are not in use? I have been doing that iOS since 2008.
You won't even know where you are.
Google Play Services claims to provide the location API for all apps, so of course if you turn off location permissions for Play you're going to turn it off for all apps. And if Maps is constantly reporting my position to Mother Google, why is it always pestering me to turn on location tracking?
Personally, I have never been prompted by my phone to download an app just because of my location. Maybe that's because I don't leave Play (or Maps either) running in the background.
Unless I'm implicitly using navigation or something similar, I've always turned off location services and only turned it on if I've using the GPS, etc.
Otherwise, it's just too much of battery hog - especially if you're moving indoors or somewhere the GPS doesn't work well - and that's been a thing for years so it's not like this is a new revelation.
Suddenly, Ubuntu Phone is looking like a real option... If only the damn thing worked.
I can get why someone would want privacy and that's their prerogative. However, it's not a secret that owning a smartphone can compromise that privacy, whether innocuously or maliciously. If you've opened all the doors and windows, don't complain about all the bugs and rodents.
Finally allows me to select permissions for apps and services. Sure it'll bitch and yell "The sky will fall" but it hasn't.
Google Play location services have been disabled on my phone for awhile already.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
> They made their money when I bought the goddamn phone.
No, no they didn't. Google doesn't charge money for Android. That's why you can get an Android phone for $15. They made nothing when you bought your phone. They make money while you use your phone.
If you prefer to pay for your phone in cash at the time of purchase, you can buy an iPhone for $650. Apple makes money when you buy your phone.
Of course, the iPhone also tracks you by default, but by paying $650 you can turn location tracking off. Well you can turn it off completely on Android too, but anyway, no Google didn't make money when you bought your phone. The store you bought it from made money, the company that made the phone made money, hell even Microsoft made money, not so much Google.
I suspect we can blame the entertainment mafiaa for this one - Google Play sells movies and TV and the studios want to control access by geo-location to content.
[Insert pithy quote here]
The Register article never mentions what application asked him if he wanted to see a McDonald's menu.
Google Play Services is simply the API gateway to Location services for many applications. You can still choose to enable/disable Location services from the individual application. For example, I may have Location on for Google Play Services so its functionality is on for application whom I choose to allow it on. I can then DISABLE Location permission on
Google App
Google Play Newstand
Google Play Store
Google+
Hangouts
Messenger
Then ENABLE it for
Earth
Maps
News & Weather
Street View
If he's insinuating that Location services are being sent for an application which has the Location service disabled then he should show proof.
So do you have any evidence that iOS is "phoning home your location" once you disable the necessary settings? iOS has three settings for GPS for individual apps -- Never, While Using, and Always.
I never will understand why people use android. Yes, the google integration is convenient, but the performance of the phones is terrible. I bought a brand new Samsung 1.5 years ago, and by this time last year, the thing had slowed to a crawl. Every single Android phone for years has been like this, to the point things like answering calls and texts or entering a girl's number in your phone is a challenge.
So I got an IPhone 6S and a Lumia 950 just to check out the alternatives as I only had used android smartphones since the blackberry days. The iPhone interface is bland, and the sea of icons is cumbersome, but the apps are fast, plentiful, and I never have problems with crashes or slowdowns impeding normal activity. Windows 10 is a much better user experience, with a far more intuitive interface that is often even faster than iPhone, but the apps are lacking.
Android is just pure garbage. Mind boggling we have to deal with this.
If I put my phone in airplane mode, even carriers can find my location. If I switch on, I am using their towers to receive calls, so I have to tell the location.
If your phone is in airplane mode, the radio is off. They can't know your location.
But anyway, no. A provider can know your location, but they don't need to know your location for the service to work. Your device connects to the nearest tower, or the tower w/ the strongest signal. The tower doesn't need to know your location for that to happen. And even if they did, they don't need to TRACK your location for the service to work (yes, carriers are tracking your location, all of them, all the time).
You can try to deny Google Play access to your handheld's location by opening the Settings app and digging through Apps -> Google Play Store -> Permissions, and flipping the switch for "location." But you'll be told you can't just shut out Google Play services: you have to switch off location services for all apps if you want to block the store from knowing your whereabouts.
Is this something new in Nougat? (Does anyone even run Nougat on anything yet?)
I'm on Marshmallow (6.0.1), and I can turn off location permissions for the Google Play Store, and wasn't "told" anything when I did. Everything else works just fine. I can even turn on location for games or other apps, and they still work, and Google Play still doesn't have access to location. So I'm not sure what the summary is talking about, here.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Good luck with them tracking me. My phone's GPS stopped working. I have a LG G Stylo that is just over a year old, and my daughter has the same phone that is about seven months old. Both GPSs on our phones stopped working at the same time. I would be happier if I had to worry about being tracked. I really like th LG G Stylo, but T-Mobile or LG needs to step up and fix these phones. LG has a systemic problem with the GPS failing.
From TFSummary, you cannot turn off tracking for Google Play or Google Maps. Google always knows where you are, and offers that information to installed apps.
"Don't be evil" is so last-decade. According to Larry Page, the "Don't be evil" culture prohibited conflicts of interest, and required objectivity and an absence of bias. This does not apply to Alphabet. https://sputniknews.com/us/201...
No, I don't. iOS is closed source. I do know that anyone that decides to trust Apple over Google or Samsung has been completely brainwashed though. So are you making an offer on my bridge or what?
P.S., that GPS setting is about battery life. Your phone knows your location from cell tower and wi-fi data anyway. Regardless, that's a setting for apps, not the OS itself.
If in doubt just install Google Maps...
The so called 'security researcher' got confused with Google Nearby https://support.google.com/acc... . Google also moved core android OS functions into Google Play Services so core functions could be updated without rolling an entire android update(which the oem would never do). Moving the location provider was part of the this rework, so everyone could get the latest google maps turn by turn directions and provide a consistent api to developers http://lifehacker.com/why-goog....
Google can extrapolate it
You'd be surprised
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Actually as part of E911 they probably are pretty much required to track your location all the time. Even if at minimum it is coarse grained location based off triangulation of the cell signal. If the phone's GPS is turned off it could likely take several minutes for it to obtain an accurate GPS fix if it was turned on only during a 911 call.
Coarse triangulation is and always will be outside of your control. It's the very nature of the technology, like knowing which CO a call is being routed to or which phone number made the call. With any cell, you can't get much more anonymous than that without it being turned off with the battery disconnected.
That being said, there's no requirement to "track your location all the time" and, until the availability of cloud-level mass storage and processing, there would be no need to. With one button they can get the current decibel values and hit recent logs and *calculate your location*, but live tracking had no purpose. Now, it *is* possible and *is* feasible and that's why we've got problems in 2016 that we didn't have in 2004.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Pretty sure attempting to acquire lock uses more battery life, due to constant trying. Otherwise, once you get the location it stops.
The tower doesn't need to know your location for that to happen.
Actually in CDMA, they do, to get the timing-advance that allows soft-handoff to work. It's down to tens of nanoseconds to make the chips line up when they're received at your location, and that means the trilateration accuracy is down to tens of feet.
Also, all modern standards are based on CDMA for the air-interface portion, because it's so efficient.
Look up any of the hyphenated terms if you care to learn more.
The article seems to use "Play store" and "Play service" interchangeably, but according to my app list (Android 7.0), they are two different apps. So which is it?
You can install a rom without google play services and sideload any apk's you need. You'll need an unlocked or cracked phone and some time reading up at xda.
You can't delete system apps on Android. You can turn them off on later versions of the OS, but that may cripple the operation of other apps that depend on them. Not sure about Google Maps, but Google Play is definitely deep in the system and there are also security-related reasons you need it.
Not sure about the GPS details, but the phone can get an approximate location by other methods.
These are the kinds of technical topics that were once addressed by slashdot discussions, assuming my memory is not playing tricks on me. I'll search some more among the comments that have been moderated "insightful" or "informative", but I'm not expecting much these days. (Expecting even less when I search for "funny". Where have all the comedians gone? Long time past.)
Of course, it may be a more fundamental problem that this discussion is already on the edge of death from old age. There is a fix, but slashdot is unlikely to implement that kind of dynamic search capability. I would even be willing to chip in towards implementing such capabilities, but even less likely that slashdot can shift to or supplementally add that sort of economic model.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
The GPS setting is not about battery life. If it is disabled for an app, the all can't access your location.
Settings -> privacy -> location services -> system services
Here you can disable location services individually for each system service that uses location services.
https://support.apple.com/en-u...
From the OP: "iOS has three settings for GPS"
What you linked is not "GPS settings".
Thanks though for the post.
That data was stored only locally. And an update reduced the size of the local cache significantly.
Also Apple is going to great lengths to keep data they collect locally on the phone or anonymize as much of the data that needs to be sent back to its servers, instead if selling it to the highest bidder like Google.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
I find this absolutely reprehensible. I truly wonder why people put up with this. It's one thing to not care that google tracks you. I don't mind. But I'd be absolutely incensed if I had no way to prevent it and I'm locked into a 2 year contract with no way to have a usable phone and usable maps without granting google this prying eye. One of my kids has a phone which doesn't even allow google play to be turned off (the phone relies on it). Each week we notice data charges when he has used no data. When we trace their origin, it's google play. Now I know why.
Boycott google.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
There's a lot of misunderstanding here of how location and tracking on Android actually works.
First of all, google play store has nothing to do with it. It's google play services that provides location services and implements location tracking in Android. That's the service that is used to retrieve AGPS data from the net, to correlate nearby wifi and mobile masts with lists held on google's servers to give location without GPS, and yes to provide tracking data on your location to google. Setting the location mode to "GPS Only" or similar is supposed to disable much of the tracking, but I'm not sure how much I'd trust that.
Play services is a pretty core component of Android, and an awful lot of things will cease to function if you manage to remove it. You can block play services from accessing your location using 3rd party tools like XPrivacy, but location for most apps will cease to function without a complex set of workarounds.
If you genuinely don't want your Android phone calling home with your location while still being able to use GPS, you need:
Thanks google...
I'm running Android 6.0.1 and I have specifically disabled location for Google Play Store and Google Play Services has not asked for any location services. I have not been able to find any issues. Of course, the Android version I am using is fairly stock on the ZTE ZMAX Pro.
You must live in a very remote area that only one cell tower can "see" it.
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And, actually, we can infer location inside buildings too. You'd be surprised how much. This is why China doesn't want you catching Pokemon near their sensitive areas. Even the existence of Faraday cages can be located via the impact of them.
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Why buy a smartphone with GPS, there are plenty of feature phones with no GPS. Then you can use a Garmin or any other dedicated GPS.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Not that I'm against spreading awareness about the privacy/security concerns that come along with constant tracking like this, but how is this news exactly? Google Play Services has always been bad about destroying my battery's charge because of its constant need to know my location, among other things, and it always broke whenever I tried to deny it permissions so I was just forced to turn off location globally in the settings anyway. Perhaps the experience was different for others, but if you're truly concerned about it, install an aftermarket OS without Gapps. At least Google provides access to the data it collects about you and offers a way to supposedly delete it, as opposed to companies like Microsoft that use malware tactics to trick you into providing it and then don't give you a way to delete it, at least that I'm aware of.
We can locate you within a meter based on cell tower logs, actually
Would you care to share the whitepaper describing how to get sub-meter accuracy from cell tower triangulation? As somebody who has actually done radio direction finding for a living I was under the impression that cell tower triangulation was considerably less accurate than GPS -- usually to within about 3/4 of a square mile.
If it's so accurate, why do cell phones even bother using GPS, which is accurate to about 3 meters if you're lucky?
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
So android play - It's also the permission manager for android apps right? It needs to have location permission before it can pass your location safely to third party apps you've installed and authorised. And this is a bad thing why? Because google gets your location? Until someone can demonstrate to me that google is using this location information to my detriment, why should I care? I certainly don't want to hand top level location trust to unknown third party vendors on a case by case basis - that sounds like a problem to me. I guess it's time to switch to apple! /s
"lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.
GPS with full spectra is accurate to 0.1 meters
You're not using full spectra.
As to deets on in-building, there are tons of scientific papers on this, grandpa.
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No. What I linked to was in response to the original poster saying that the privacy settings that disallowed location services were only for apps and not system services. There are 17 different system services - as shown in the link - for which you can disable location services.
An app can ask for two levels of permissions when it comes to location services - always and when in use that was my the statement I was replying to.
There's nobody to directly complain to.
Sure, you can PROBABLY dig this shit out, given enough time. But they make it a supreme pain in the balls.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Really, what the fuck? 10 years ago if I suggested that everyone get a device that always tracks your location and reports it to me, I'd probably end up on sex offenders lists and all kind of other bad lists. Now this?
GPS with full spectra is accurate to 0.1 meters
Are you talking about RTK / CPGPS? I'd love it if you could show me a consumer cell phone that's capable of that. Every cell phone I've ever seen is lucky to get 3 m accuracy when it's outside and quickly degrades to >10 m indoors.
As to deets on in-building, there are tons of scientific papers on this, grandpa.
But you can't actually produce any at the moment, of course.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Google Play Services is just a library. It doesn't access locations itself, but offers an interface for retrieving location information. Apps still have to have location permission themselves to get location information through Google Play Services (See the description of the api here, particularly the "Specify App Permissions" section).
maybe they're trying to have a clean, unified API so that apps work across different phones and OS versions.
Why would such an API be part of the Google Play app again? I missed the part where you explained how that makes sense. Such an API already exists for tracking location, and it's that API that's controlled by the privacy settings. Why make another one, built into an application that most people would never consider removing, that's not controlled by an individual application's privacy settings?
Nobody really cares where you are. You're a tiny blip in a vast sea of Android users, and their collective behavior is what's interesting. Quit worrying so much about "surveillance", because, really, you're boring and not profitable, so Google isn't watching you.
Have you read my blog lately?
> Is there a reason you can't pay the true cost up front, instead of giving up privacy?
Perhaps you missed this:
>> If you prefer to pay for your phone in cash at the time of purchase, you can buy an iPhone for $650. Apple makes money when you buy your phone.
> Could it be that Google is an advertising company, and makes far more money over time through third-party sales of your location data to sleazy marketers?
Not quite. They are an advertising company, NOT a marketing data broker. They don't do "third-party sales of your data to sleazy marketers" because that would be giving up the cow; they'd rather sell the milk. Google sells ad placements (called Adwords), they do not sell the data, the data is their treasure.
iOS now lets you install any apps that you compile yourself. It's not as convenient as F-Droid, but it's a step out of the walled garden. Unfortunately, such apps aren't allowed quite all of the permissions that ones from the App Store can request.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
OSMAnd now has an iOS port, but unfortunately it doesn't yet do offline routing (and most of the places I want routing are when I'm travelling and data on roaming is expensive enough that I only want to use it as a last resort).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Publish the phone numbers of all employees? Yeah, I'm sure that'll be a great idea. Dumbass.
Eat the rich.
There is an alternative which performs way better than OEM or Stock Android, Cyanogen. The issue is, other app stores (Amazon, various Chinese) does their own evil things if not switched off.
Google maps is and has always been overrated, disconnected from real World application, its walk and bicycle navigation is a joke compared to "Here" (Nokia) maps.
The only issue here is a good app store, everything else can be achieved with Cyanogen without Google Services.
Cyanogen or other custom Android build without gapps installed?
Lets be fair here, the Nexus 5 has an unlocked bootloader so unlike most other phones it's trivial to install an alternative OS on the hardware that doesn't include Google ad/spyware, or has additional permission settings that can block most tracking.
I installed Google Keep to try location-based notes with a reminder (a shopping list in other words). It only notified me twice: AFTER I had already returned home from said store.
So silver lining: they do want to track you, but they're still rather shit at it.
Google Play is not the same thing as the Play store.
Google Play includes a sizeable part of the operating system. Yes, the Play store is amongst it but go and have a read of the documentation to see what else it contains - some of it anyway...
Why is this so? Well actually, it is the result of free enterprise - and not by Google!
Perhaps some people in the USA have learnt just how bad some of your telcos are in comparison with ones elsewhere? They like to delay updates - whether deliberately or just by giving them near zero importance. They have shown how they do not want "older" devices to get updates. They would rather you got a new one. This could end up with everyone not owning a super shiny flagship phone being years behind with the security..
A few years ago, Google put parts of the OS where they could get at with normal OTA updates. From time to time, you may receive updates even though you are still on Marshmallow or Lollipop . That is Google Play.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
It's not Google Play, but Google Play services, which provide the whole phone with location. If some app uses wifi location, the services provide it. in turn they send gps to google, so the matching gets more accurate (and google can improve the wifi map).
But yes, you virtually cannot stop GPS from talking to google all the time and that's a big problem. And many apps won't work without play (and thus gps) installed, because they use it for Google cloud messaging (GCM) push notifications, DRM management, inapp purchases, location and much more.
The part of the walled garden I don't line is the reliance on iTunes. I don't like iTunes, never did right from its inception. The USB cord from the phone fits fine into my PC so why should I have to use an application to get functionality out of it? Any workaround I have seen that avoids iTunes is clumsy at best. I just don't want any part of that.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Except install cyanogen and, oops, there goes your warranty.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
https://productforums.google.c...
Google is constructing a complicated matrix of permissions to render the existing permissions system irrelevant. So my specific declaration of shenanigans was because your photos from the Camera app sends the photo to Google Maps. Camera has GPS permission turned off, but I can't use Maps without it. In order to disable the Camera/Maps off, I have to turn location history off which also disables Map's arrival time estimations. Meanwhile disabling web search history removes the ability for me to tag "Home" and "work" locations.
It's time we get a third phone OS, accountable and controlled to no one. Linux Phone OS anybody?
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
I can't speak for all manufacturers, but Google doesn't seem to care if you flash a Nexus, my brother got a warrenty replacement on his rooted N5, all we did was re-flash the recovery images. I bet OnePlus and FairPhone, who also ship with unlocked bootloaders, wouldn't mind either.
NOTHING. YOU HAVE TO COMPLAIN. Otherwise all they know is their sales have dropped. ABSOLUTLEY NO IDEA WHY.
I didn't say don't complain, I said you have to ALSO not buy. Complain all you want as long as you actually take some action.
Are you really so naive that multi-billion dollar corporations don't survey their users? You think they are just going to sit in their board room "Duh! I see sales go down! Uh oh!".