Google Tracks Your Movement – Like it or Not

Google wants to know where you go so badly that it records your movements even when you explicitly tell it not to.

An Associated Press investigation found that many Google services on Android devices and iPhones store your location data even if you’ve used a privacy setting that says it will prevent Google from doing so.

google location history

According to a new report published by APnews, Google’ saves your location history even if you’ve paused “Location History” on mobile devices.

Google states on its support pages that you can turn off Location History to prevent the company from storing the places you have been, but AP said this is not true.

Disabling Location History on your devices, however, stops Google from tracking your movements for the purposes of creating a timeline and map of your travels.

A separate feature, called “Web and App Activity,” will continue to store time-stamped location information when you use certain Google apps or browse the web.

For example, Google’ stores a snapshot of where you are when you merely open its Maps app. Automatic daily weather updates on Android phones pinpoint roughly where you are.

It is possible to delete this data, though. Users must remove their web and app location history one point at a time – or delete all of their stored history with Google.

Google has also disputed that there is anything unclear in the way it handles its location history settings on Android.

In a statement to AP, it confirmed there are several ways that Google may use location data – including: Location History, Web and App Activity, and through device-level location services.

“We provide clear descriptions of these tools, and robust controls so people can turn them on or off, and delete their histories at any time,” said Google.

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19 thoughts on “Google Tracks Your Movement – Like it or Not”

  1. We must use our phones and keep embracing new technology hence if it doesn’t cause me any harm, I have no problem with their tracking of my location

    • Ever wonder if your details eventually got leaked through defects or bug?.

      Then you would know its terrible and worth to be afraid of…..

      In addition….

      Facebook, is also a tech giant that holds large info of users, and before the recent cambridge analytic “saga” everyone might think their data is safe with facebook…

  2. And scamming rate is on the increase, they use all this app, internet, search, and many more. how will this help in tracking those involve? if at all it has any impact….
    this is my concern because the rate of fraud is alarming.

  3. I think I can bypass this through jailbreak iPhone ?, my location on map can be anywhere in the world ? now anywhere I choose ? all technology can be manipulated ?

  4. They want to have control over everything. This is bad for privacy sake. Let’s have a bit of control over what we want shared out.

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