We are all being watched. Our technology is tracking our movements, whether it is our browsing history or where we go. Some of this is done to tailor ads to us while some of this is done for much more nefarious purposes. We all know its being done and at least Google now admits as much.
Tracking through Location Services
A recent update to Google’s help page for its Location History service has been changed to say that “some location data may be saved as part of your activity on other services like Search and Maps.” We all know that this means all of the data and this even includes people who have turned the Location History off. We are being watched and that information is being used to advertise to us though they claim they do not sell it to third parties hence why it has not come under scrutiny the way Facebook and others have.
Google had originally claimed that with the Location History turned off they could not track user information but the AP claimed otherwise which forced this clarification. Turning off the Location History only prevents tracking on the Timeline. For users who do want privacy they will need to turn off the Web and App Activity feature which is enabled by default.
Not all bad news from Google
Google has scored a major privacy win for its email users though. A new feature called Confidential Mode has been enabled for mobile devices that will give users tighter control of their email was unveiled earlier this year. The feature allows a user to set a time limit for the email, that is it will expire after a certain time like a Snapchat message, and will be deleted. Other features prevent an email from being printed, forwarded of downloaded. Of course someone can still take a screenshot of it, not really anything anyone can do about that. Security can be further enhances by requiring a passcode for the email, which will be texted to the user.
With web privacy being a major concern one does have to wonder exactly how Google could have been so sloppy with its wording regarding their Location Services. They have more lawyers and tech writers then they probably know what to do with. They do care about the security and privacy of their users but it is a fine line that they are walking and need to be extremely careful about what they are doing.