There is little surprise that Google, too, is tracking your location – after all, that’s key for a company which derives the vast majority of its revenue from targeted advertising.
At least Google is mostly upfront about it while Apple seemingly has decided to go incommunicado on the topic (see my blog: “Stranger than fiction: Apple’s iOS4 is tracking your moves”).
Now, with all that location data and other personal (email, friends, pictures, etc) information being constantly tracked, stored, and analyzed – why would you care?
As far as I am concerned, it boils down to overreaching lawmakers and overzealous law enforcement as well as criminal activity (Wired Magazine has a good article on the topic). Historically, for a number of different groups of people, this personalized data about you and your life has just been too tempting to leave alone.
Think it can’t happen to you? Check out these recent incidents.
Cheers,
– Terrence
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04/28/2011 at 23:05
Manfred Moser
This is just FUD. All the tracking in Android is opt-in and can be deactivated.
04/29/2011 at 01:05
terrencebarr
True. As others have pointed out, though, that makes the platform a lot less useful. Coincidentally, Google has insisted that handset manufacturers use Google’s location tracking technology (http://terrencebarr.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/skyhook-wireless-sues-google-over-android/), so it’s not like users have much choice. As Eric Schmidt said: “We know where you are, we know what you like.”