Google made it hard for users to keep location data private
The aggressive collection of location data by Google and the difficulty for users to manage their privacy settings was known as problems by Google employees, lawsuit documents read, with employees declaring "Apple is eating our lunch."
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich sued Google in May 2020 over the tracking practices of Android, with the accusation that Google continued to collect location data from smartphones despite users opting out. In unsealed documents, it appears that Google made privacy settings for location data harder to find, in order to preserve its data collection practices.
In the documents, it is said that Google continued the location data collection even if users turned off numerous location-sharing settings, throughout apps and Android itself, according to Insider. Google is also said to have pressured other Android smartphone makers into making the privacy settings difficult to find, because users supposedly liked being tracked.
In one Google employee email, the staff member shows the same frustrations as users in relation to user data, in that they should be able to get their location on their device without sharing that data with the search company. "This may be how Apple is eating our lunch," they proposed, as Apple was "much more likely" to let users use location-based apps and services without sharing that data with Apple itself.
Google is said to have purposefully made the privacy settings harder to find, after testing versions of Android with easier-to-find controls but determining users actually used them. Viewing this as a "problem," Google pushed the privacy options deeper into settings menus.
The difficulty of hiding your location from Google was revealed in a deposition with Jack Menzel a former Google VP in charge of Google Maps. Menzel said users would have to intentionally throw Google off the trail for tracking by setting their home and work addresses as random locations, in order for it to not properly determine their home and work locations.
The unsealing of the documents occurs shortly after Google revealed new privacy initiatives at Google I/O, including password management, the default automatic deletion of data it collects on users over time, and to warn Google Maps users that they have Location History turned on.
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich sued Google in May 2020 over the tracking practices of Android, with the accusation that Google continued to collect location data from smartphones despite users opting out. In unsealed documents, it appears that Google made privacy settings for location data harder to find, in order to preserve its data collection practices.
In the documents, it is said that Google continued the location data collection even if users turned off numerous location-sharing settings, throughout apps and Android itself, according to Insider. Google is also said to have pressured other Android smartphone makers into making the privacy settings difficult to find, because users supposedly liked being tracked.
In one Google employee email, the staff member shows the same frustrations as users in relation to user data, in that they should be able to get their location on their device without sharing that data with the search company. "This may be how Apple is eating our lunch," they proposed, as Apple was "much more likely" to let users use location-based apps and services without sharing that data with Apple itself.
Google is said to have purposefully made the privacy settings harder to find, after testing versions of Android with easier-to-find controls but determining users actually used them. Viewing this as a "problem," Google pushed the privacy options deeper into settings menus.
The difficulty of hiding your location from Google was revealed in a deposition with Jack Menzel a former Google VP in charge of Google Maps. Menzel said users would have to intentionally throw Google off the trail for tracking by setting their home and work addresses as random locations, in order for it to not properly determine their home and work locations.
The unsealing of the documents occurs shortly after Google revealed new privacy initiatives at Google I/O, including password management, the default automatic deletion of data it collects on users over time, and to warn Google Maps users that they have Location History turned on.
Follow all the details of WWDC 2021 with the comprehensive AppleInsider coverage of the whole week-long event from June 7 through June 11, including details of all the new launches and updates.
Stay on top of all Apple news right from your HomePod. Say, "Hey, Siri, play AppleInsider," and you'll get latest AppleInsider Podcast. Or ask your HomePod mini for "AppleInsider Daily" instead and you'll hear a fast update direct from our news team. And, if you're interested in Apple-centric home automation, say "Hey, Siri, play HomeKit Insider," and you'll be listening to our newest specialized podcast in moments.
Comments
What a scumbag company. I hope these recent “revelations”(not revelations for tech people but the public seems to be catching on) cause a mass migration to real iPhones next iPhone generation.
Google is de tech-Jaws, hunting for the people’s privacy data, because this is the only way it can survive.
This fool’s older people who THINK they’re buying an iPhone but it’s a data-mining Samsung or Pixel. That’s just fuc*ed up.
The headline says “made it hard” not “makes it hard”. Is the implication that this is no longer an issue or is it an ongoing, current issue?
While there's almost always at least some smidgen of truth behind every lawsuit at least some of us wait for the full story to be revealed. Allegations in a lawsuit does not make it all true.
And, i suppose in general, it doesn't matter too much until it does (until you become a victim of it in some way).
We're more aware of the issues, past, present and can think of potential future problems, where someone who isn't thinking about that just hasn't experienced it so far, so who cares? I think they will, but it will be too late by then.
Another thing these people also say is “well... Apple probably does it too!” And that’s another problem. Anything negative they can claim Apple probably also does.
We also know that Google has a very strained relationship with the truth, so no one trust their new "privacy initiatives" either.
I have added emphasis to the section of your post I think is too simplistic. There are any number of useful reasons for saving everything your users upload, sometimes even if they tell you to delete them (for example, a user who has deleted or lost every other copy of the file may contact you to see if you still have it, or government regulations may require retention of information for a certain period), in addition to more nefarious reasons that only serve the owners of the service.
More damning for Facebook is the requirement to surrender your copyright to any materials you upload to the service. That provision (which I last checked several years ago, so apologies if it no longer applies) is abhorrent because there is literally no user benefit for that requirement.
Yeah, the problem is that if you want to compete, business-wise, or in the arena of ideas, etc. you have to be on these platforms. This is why there need to be strong alternatives, and why their censorship activities are so dangerous. One can think of a recent example that cost hundreds of thousands of lives because they controlled the narrative. We can debate all day whether free-speech should apply to a company, but at some point, when a company reaches a certain level of influence, we can’t have them controlling speech, the ‘news’, the ‘facts’ and/or using that control to help crush any competition. I don’t care what term we use to label that, but it is insanely dangerous!
Don’t they have to make something of that sort, so they can distribute it on their platform and potentially others they partner with and not face a lawsuit? Sorry, I don’t know the details there, but are you actually surrendering your ownership, or are you giving them a kind of derivative sub-ownership to then do as they wish with the things you’ve posted there? Yeah, the former would be pretty scary.