[nl]

It's opt-in

You may be right about it being opt-in - although the "We locate 180 million [phones]" makes that unclear. I don't see how they can claim that if it is opt-in.

definitely no way to get a locate without a device owner providing permission to do so.

It's not clear to me what you are saying here. The carriers know where every phone is (by the cell being used), which is the location used for non-GPS enabled phones. Veriplace may not let you as a developer see this, but given that veriplace seems to get access to your location without permission, I think it is misleading to say there is no way to get access to your location.

these companies are tightly regulated and strictly watched over by both the government and the carriers. It's not these services that should be the concern, it's more so data retention policies and what not of carriers where the data originates.

See, I disagree. I think if Veriplace can get this data then it isn't beyond imagination for other companies to get access to the data from the carriers too.