[hooby]

1. The change does exist (although it apparently has been live for quite some time in some regions at least)

2. The change does have the effect of Google gaining more permissions (and subsequently more data) than previously

3. The author assumes that (2) is the (main) reason why (1) was done in the first place

Regardless of whether (3) is correct or completely wrong - and regardless of whether the author truly believes (3), or only uses it as a rhetorical trick to increase the controversy (and therefore the reach) of their post - both (1) and (2) remain fact.

And (2) is the actual problem here - regardless of whether it was done intentionally by Google or not.

[__michaelg]

Upvoted, this looks more correct than what I wrote.

[hooby]

As for (3) - there's no proof either way, as you already said.

But collecting more of that data which their marketing business makes it's profits from, is likely to have a positive effect on their bottom line.

And since the change already has been live for a while in some regions, it seems likely that Google is well aware of how much impact this change has on their revenue.

You decide for yourself if money is or isn't the reason why a big corporation like Google would do something like that.

[s3p]

I think your original comment was spot on. The reply above didn't really add anything imo.

[ryantgtg]

> 1. The change does exist (although it apparently has been live for quite some time in some regions at least)

Pretty sure I’ve been experiencing this change for many years at this point.

[delroth]

> The change does have the effect of Google gaining more permissions (and subsequently more data)

There's a huge logic gap here. Obtaining more permissions doesn't at all imply obtaining more data when it's caused by an incidental change. Maybe the permissions aren't being used outside of the Maps context, or maybe it doesn't matter because the data was already be known.

[bogwog]

It’s true that we can’t really know whether Google is exploiting these expanded permissions to collect more data unless we have some insider information.

However, it’s generally very easy to predict what a company is going to do by observing their business model and incentive structure. In Google’s case, collecting as much data as possible is a major part of their business, so without more information, there’s no good reason to assume they won’t do it.

[luckylion]

> It’s true that we can’t really know whether Google is exploiting these expanded permissions to collect more data unless we have some insider information.

You could track usage and see what pages on google.com are accessing these APIs.

I doubt that it's a lot. Google already has fairly good geo-localization based on IP, GPS-level accuracy isn't necessary for ads. They could've already connected your data from maps.google.com to www.google.com, because both are using consent.google.com and you're getting a .google.com unique cookie.

This is mostly just outrage because people don't understand how things work.

[creatonez]

Google search asks for geolocation. So the permission absolutely is being used.