Cell Phones

WTH!? Google Play Store wants to know my GPS location (after a recent update)?

  • Last Updated:
  • Aug 24th, 2016 3:38 pm
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Deal Expert
Aug 22, 2006
31271 posts
17295 upvotes
Tichi wrote: Oupsies...
I must be a modern tech retard then. Of course I'm always clicking agree without reading, when installing stuff, android in particular.
Especially nowadays I read everything I agree to.
But then I've always assumed that you can reverse all what you agreed upon by fine-tuning e.g. the google settings afterwards, which I attempted a few times on my main account, and tried to eliminate all loopholes towards possible sharing/keeping history of my location...
You can. At least most of it.
There's settings to disable this stuff.
For me I leave it enabled because the more devices sending in GPS data the better stuff like traffic is going to be.

Now... you may want to disable it if you have a wife and a mistress though as Google now has easily accessible logs of exactly how long you've been at X.
N.B. So, you are saying that google traffic is really coming from our cellphones? ... pretty impressive, regardless of privacy issues..
Yup. Has been for a while.
It's a good idea too. Think about it: What other device has widespread GPS access and internet access?

Here's a bit more "conspiracy" too.
I assume you've heard of Pokemon Go and maybe Ingress?
Niantic labs was previously a Google startup. They spun off in late 2015 after Google became Alphabet.
But Google, Nintendo, and The Pokemon Company invested $30M into Ninatic.

Why would Google give a bunch of money to a company for a game?
GPS data. Specifically walking routes.
Now you have a million Pokestops and Portals and people actively walking to each one.
Team that with active GPS data (and a reason to enable said GPS data) this means that they have fine grained paths that actual people take to get to a location.
Banned
User avatar
May 3, 2009
6148 posts
781 upvotes
MayorOfToronto wrote: You must be dull at family members parties.
I guess some people find tinkering with other peoples device as "fun". You should go out more.

Now hopefully some people gets it. LOLL
Deal Fanatic
User avatar
May 9, 2009
7135 posts
3737 upvotes
Montreal
Tichi wrote: By tracking i mean specifically my precise gps based location. No, I did not know that goolge was tracking me this way, even IF i DISABLE location history/sharing.
If they do, would not it be a grave violation of fhe terms of service, and already subject to lawsuits?
Have you actually read the terms of service you think they're gravely violating?

By all means, go ahead and sue Google. Let us know how long your lawyer laughs at you for.

Google has been crowdsourcing anonymized traffic data, which you can opt out of, for 7 years.

https://googleblog.blogspot.ca/2009/08/ ... affic.html
Deal Expert
User avatar
Dec 12, 2009
29537 posts
20456 upvotes
Tichi wrote: Of course i let gmaps know my gps location.

Are you implying that gmaps is sharing my gps location with other parts of google , even though I have location history and sharing disabled ?

P.S. I agree that location related settings are kinda very messy in goolge settings, dispersed in multiple places, so it is very easy to confuse and to trick customer to leave some info for sharing, but in principle it should be possible to stay completely private wrt gps location!?
It's all the under the same Google account. Do you honestly believe that turning history off means no logs? Yeah right.

If you really want to fully control your phone, install xprivacy and manual control every app. Don't enable location for anything.

Honestly, I can't worry so much.
Deal Addict
May 5, 2008
1947 posts
649 upvotes
Folks, sorry now I'm totally confused. I do want to share my GPS location with goolge traffic, as I find this function very useful.
I also want to have some conttol over it. So, which setting triggers/enables/disables this kind of sharing? And e.g. if i share, how often it activates my GPS?

1) There is main phone settings/location, which should be turned on at all times, otherwise GPS chip is powered off, and one cannot use any gps app.

2) There are also two location-related places in goolge settings app on ur phone (or online). These are location history and location sharing.
If i turn both (or some) of these off, does it mean i'm no longer sharing my location even anonymously with goolge traffic?

3) or the setting to control gps sharing with google traffic is somewhere else?

I tried to google these questions (no pun intended), but found no coherent explanation...


will888 wrote: It's all the under the same Google account. Do you honestly believe that turning history off means no logs? Yeah right.

If you really want to fully control your phone, install xprivacy and manual control every app. Don't enable location for anything.

Honestly, I can't worry so much.
death_hawk wrote: Especially nowadays I read everything I agree to.


You can. At least most of it.
There's settings to disable this stuff.
For me I leave it enabled because the more devices sending in GPS data the better stuff like traffic is going to be.

Now... you may want to disable it if you have a wife and a mistress though as Google now has easily accessible logs of exactly how long you've been at X.


Yup. Has been for a while.
It's a good idea too. Think about it: What other device has widespread GPS access and internet access?

Here's a bit more "conspiracy" too.
I assume you've heard of Pokemon Go and maybe Ingress?
Niantic labs was previously a Google startup. They spun off in late 2015 after Google became Alphabet.
But Google, Nintendo, and The Pokemon Company invested $30M into Ninatic.

Why would Google give a bunch of money to a company for a game?
GPS data. Specifically walking routes.
Now you have a million Pokestops and Portals and people actively walking to each one.
Team that with active GPS data (and a reason to enable said GPS data) this means that they have fine grained paths that actual people take to get to a location.
Deal Addict
May 5, 2008
1947 posts
649 upvotes
Ok, I ve found how to do it on the Iphone... But for android, the optikn below seems to be absent.. wth?

Turn off location data collection
To turn off anonymous location collection, follow the steps below.

Open the Google Maps app maps.
Touch the Menu .
Touch Settings.
Select About, terms & privacy > Terms & privacy.
Select Location data collection.
Slide the switch to OFF.
Banned
Dec 5, 2015
2038 posts
429 upvotes
Concord, ON
Tichi wrote: As far as I can see, Netflix is happy with my IP, it does not want GPS.
If you want play store to ban ips and ban VPNs sure
Deal Addict
May 5, 2008
1947 posts
649 upvotes
will888 wrote: OP, this may make you feel better or maybe worse. Look at the things that can be used for tracking people.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ing-online
Yea, of course there is a lot of tricks fhe companies use to track us innocent users.
I do not understand, though, the attitude of many users who commented here: "shut up and enjoy" kind of...

E.g. GPS tracking example in the first post is completely preposterous so i' happy i 've disabled it...

On the other hand, contributing to google traffic is nice, though i' still like to ses a possibility to opt-out (it seems there is none).

In any event, knowing how exactly you are being tracked is useful, is not it?
Deal Expert
User avatar
Dec 12, 2009
29537 posts
20456 upvotes
Tichi wrote: Yea, of course there is a lot of tricks fhe companies use to track us innocent users.
I do not understand, though, the attitude of many users who commented here: "shut up and enjoy" kind of...

E.g. GPS tracking example in the first post is completely preposterous so i' happy i 've disabled it...

On the other hand, contributing to google traffic is nice, though i' still like to ses a possibility to opt-out (it seems there is none).

In any event, knowing how exactly you are being tracked is useful, is not it?
Life is full of give and take. If those using my location services do so in "good faith", I can live with that. Good faith meaning using map app location data for the benefit of the app and such. Selling the data to third parties would be going well beyond the limit of good faith. I would suggest adopting the phrase from the serenity prayer about accepting the things that cannot be changed.
Deal Fanatic
Aug 3, 2014
6089 posts
4352 upvotes
What's the big deal? Google already knows your location and owns your life anyway.
Newbie
Aug 23, 2016
1 posts
I had the exactly same problem with you. I followed these steps and it really helped.

Source: choilieng
If this issue happened after the last Google Play Store upgrade/update, please follow the steps below to see if it fixes the issue. If necessary use the Uninstall updates button to re-update the latest version.

Step 1 - Clear Play Store data and cache:

Go to Settings > Apps or Application Manager (this may differ depending on your device).
Scroll to All apps and then scroll down to ???Google Play Store??? app.
Open the app details and tap on the ???Force stop??? button.
Then, tap on the ???Clear data??? button.

Step 2 - Clear Google Play Services cache:

Go to Settings > Apps or Application Manager (this may differ depending on your device)
Scroll to All apps and then scroll down to ???Google Play Services??? app.
Open the app details and tap on the ???Force stop??? button.
Then, tap on the ???Clear cache??? button.

Let me know if these steps resolves this issue or not.
Deal Expert
Aug 26, 2001
18145 posts
1741 upvotes
Mississauga, ON
Simple solution to this problem in Android 6.0+

Go to app permissions -> Play Store. Disable location. Problem solved.
Deal Addict
User avatar
Dec 22, 2008
1029 posts
502 upvotes
Vancouver
Honestly why does it matter. Google already has your location from maps and such so who cares if other Google apps ask for it.

Permissions are to give y'all a false sense of security
You have a secret bunker or something

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