[eitland]

> Remember that many people ‘have nothing to hide’ so they turn on services like Google Latitude. Then later they’re al surprised when their data is sold to the highest bidder.

Do you have any proof that Google does exactly this?

I don't like Google at all (anymore) but I thought Google was somewhat ok in that they never sold my raw data points even if they would sell accesss to place an ad to "visitors who have been at this geographic location recently".

[gvb]

Yes. I had it more than once where I purchased an item from a store and, about 10 minutes later, I received a coupon for a discount at the very store I just made the purchase. It happened to my wife as well.

After the second time that happened, I disabled location in my phone settings and only enable it if I have a specific need for it. I have not received any "spontaneous" coupons since disabling locations.

[eitland]

Still possible without Google dumping your raw location history, but still interesting.

[amelius]

> even if they would sell accesss to place an ad to "visitors who have been at this geographic location recently

So if I click on the ad, the company behind it knows I was on that geographic location recently. This is how Google leaks data.

[eitland]

Yep, but that is still on a vastly different scale than what this article is talking about where raw data points are dumped.

I'm not saying that the case you mention isn't problematic but there's still a not the same as being able to follow you around the city.

[tinus_hn]

The example is to illustrate that people are fine with giving away their data. Google Latitude no longer exists and I don’t think Google sells data like that, they analyse it themselves. But other services do.

[eitland]

1. Fine. But then one shouldn't single out one company that maybe doesn't do this. I was honestly interested in knowing if they were caught red handed but so far no references to that.

2.The function (at least the parts I used) now exists as part of Google maps.

[surround]

I’m not sure if Google would sell user’s location data to advertisers since Google is an advertiser. But they definitely record it for themselves, and the government has access to it as well.