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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.
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.
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.
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!
I'm sure a GPS location spoofer, if such a thing exists, is highly illegal and would get you in big trouble to use it. GPS signals are on a licensed part of the spectrum, and interfering with those frequencies can cause not just your GPS device to fail, but possibly others around you. GPS is used in in some life or death applications, such as air navigation, so I imagine the feds would take this kind of spoofing very, very seriously.
I believe schle means a software-based location spoofer that feeds a false location to the app in question, instead of messing with the actual connection to the GPS satellites.
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".
Are you positive that "Location" wasn't already turned off in Settings when you went to look at Google Play Services permissions? On my phone (6.0.1), if Location is turned on and I try to set Google Play Services location permission to "off", I get a popup informing me that Google Play Services is the source of location services for all other applications, and that if I want to deny location privileges to Google Play, I have to turn off Location (in Settings). If Location is turned off, the location permission is off in Google Play Services.
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...
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.
Try to understand. Google is a company. They need to make money.
They made their money when I bought the goddamn phone. If they don't feel like they made *enough* money, they should have charged more for the phone and/or licensing Android, not spying and selling out and digitally violating all of their users 24 hours a day.
You won't even know where you are.
Are you new to the concept of publicly traded corporations? There is no such thing as making enough money. They have to find new revenue streams every year or else their shareholders bail.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
> 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 only turn on GPS when I want to use it, why waste the battery?
Cheap storage VM.
Because due to the way that capitalism corrodes market choice and reduces product quality, I have two viable choices for a smartphone
Translation: you want to have your cake and eat it too. No one owes you anything. You are not entitled to cheap wonderful smart phones. There's nothing in the Bill of Rights guaranteeing all citizens cheap, wonderful, feature rich smart phones. There are products on the market. Some gather usage stats. Others have more walled gardens than others. Others yet are more expensive and less feature rich. You get to choose one of these based on your criteria.
Why don't you look into Ubuntu phones? http://www.ubuntu.com/phone
What a wonderful 1st world problem we have here huh?
This should be modded way down. "Not buying the product" on an individual level does SHIT to change corporate behavior.
Yes you are right. Keep buying their shit and giving them money, but come here and whine about it. You know how to affect change. You are truly a revolutionary my friend.
Plus, giving up that fancy smartphone would be HARD. No Angry Birds. No Snapchat. It's not a life worth living.
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....
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...
with no way to have a usable phone and usable maps
Oh? So you want to use a company's services and all they provide without giving back? There are plenty of usable maps out there. There are plenty of phones on the market which don't have Google Services (which 1bn Chinese people don't even have access to).
You can't have it all ways.