Google To Start Permanently Deleting Users' Location History (theguardian.com) 51
Google will delete everything it knows about users' previously visited locations, the company has said, a year after it committed to reducing the amount of personal data it stores about users. From a report: The company's "timeline" feature -- previously known as Location History -- will still work for those who choose to use it, letting them scroll back through potentially decades of travel history to check where they were at a specific time. But all the data required to make the feature work will be saved locally, to their own phones or tablets, with none of it being stored on the company's servers.
In an email sent by the company to Maps users, seen by the Guardian, Google said they have until 1 December to save all their old journeys before it is deleted for ever. Users will still be able to back up their data if they're worried about losing it or want to sync it across devices but that will no longer happen by default. The company is also reducing the default amount of time that location history is stored for. Now, it will begin to delete past locations after just three months, down from a previous default of a year and a half. In a blogpost announcing the changes, Google didn't cite a specific reason for the updates, beyond suggesting that users may want to delete information from their location history if they are "planning a surprise birthday party."
In an email sent by the company to Maps users, seen by the Guardian, Google said they have until 1 December to save all their old journeys before it is deleted for ever. Users will still be able to back up their data if they're worried about losing it or want to sync it across devices but that will no longer happen by default. The company is also reducing the default amount of time that location history is stored for. Now, it will begin to delete past locations after just three months, down from a previous default of a year and a half. In a blogpost announcing the changes, Google didn't cite a specific reason for the updates, beyond suggesting that users may want to delete information from their location history if they are "planning a surprise birthday party."
No ad value, costs money to store (Score:1)
They certainly wouldn't delete user tracking data for the sake of user privacy.
Assuming they're not lying and actually follow through.
Why do they have user location data for more than a few minutes to process a user request anyway? Why do they store it at all?
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There are many reasons for storing that data, some of which *gasp* are useful for their customers. Imagine that.
The real question is different: "What does Google do with that data?"
Just storing it is fine. Using it for stuff the customer is unaware of is not fine.
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If they're storing it, it is to use it to make money. And no, storing it is not fine. That's just another opportunity for it to be stolen or subpoenaed or something else bad for users.
What are these useful things to customers such that they need to store it long term? Apparently not so much as they're cutting it back to a year from presumably forever. Why a year? Why is that more useful than a week or 24 hours or 10 minutes?
Re:No ad value, costs money to store (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe I want to recall which restaurant I went to a couple months ago; I remember the food was good, the approximate date, but not its name.
Maybe I want to recall this acquaintance's address, he invited me to a barbecue last year and now he wants to do it again, so, rather than asking for the address once more, I just look it up in my travel history.
Maybe I want to remember which avenue this friend held his birthday party.
Maybe I want to remember the exact date we've been to that store and bought what stuff. I remember "sometime in March" but can't, for the life of me, figure out the exact date.
Yes, I know there are people who remember all these rather mundane details, down to who was wearing what and when. I'm not one of those people. That kind of information has no place in my head, and it's good Google's Timeline knows it.
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"You last visited 10 years ago" has little value to advertisers. "You last visited last week" does.
What they seem to be missing is annual trips. Advertisers may want to attract tourists based on what they showed an interest in on last year's trip.
Google must have done the sums and decided that market wasn't worth it. Maybe people indicate what they are looking for with searches anyway, e.g. the quick "coffee" and "hotel" buttons in Google Maps.
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I can see how long distance travel data might be interesting to the vacation/travel industry but there's still no benefit to the consumer.
The last thing anyone needs is to get ads all over the net to visit Mexico when they just came back from Mexico.
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The benefit is having a record of the places you visited. Often I want to revisit some place I went to but don't recall the exact location of, or review the route I took getting there to see if I could do better next time.
I could get a GPS logger, but it's another thing to charge and carry, and most don't have an all-day battery unless they are a brick. Plus I'd only want to upload it to Google Maps to view anyway, because Open Street Map is no substitute.
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They can provide an opt-in for people with that unusual need and leave the rest of us out of default opt in long term tracking.
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It is opt in, at least in my country. Talk to your politicians about getting some better privacy laws.
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Very happy for you.
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There are many reasons for storing that data, some of which *gasp* are useful for their customers. Imagine that. The real question is different: "What does Google do with that data?" Just storing it is fine. Using it for stuff the customer is unaware of is not fine.
My use case: About once a year I end up driving all over three states to deal with client bullshit. Multiple clients. I need to bill for my time. Since it's not a daily habit, I always forget to stop/start my time tracker so I don't know who to bill and for how much. Enter the Google Maps tracking feature that I've used for something like 10-15 years. When I'm done and get back to my office, I pull up my location history *ON MY WORKSTATION* instead of using my microscopic phone display, figure out star
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They certainly wouldn't delete user tracking data for the sake of user privacy.
Assuming they're not lying and actually follow through.
Why do they have user location data for more than a few minutes to process a user request anyway? Why do they store it at all?
I think long term storage is problematic unless you have specifically opted into it, but short term is a different story. We had a friend of the family loose control of her car in a rural area at night, went off the road, and down into a ravine. I don't remember what happened to the phone but she wasn't found for days, fortunately still alive. The wife and I leave our location tracking on just because of things like this.
She has my password and I have hers. If one of us doesn't get home and aren't answe
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I get it. I use that as well but a year? If you haven't been found in a year you're not getting found.
I can see a few days or even, maybe, as long as 10 days. Maybe.
A year? C'mon....
How about not tracking and hardware switch off (Score:2)
Not tracking and not collecting locations by default and a hardware switch to prevent getting location data.
It may help if we have a few WiFi routers with names repeated throughout the world to make data collection more accurate.
Stops Law Enforcement Requests (Score:5, Insightful)
I would suspect that the main motivation is to eliminate the overhead of dealing with requests for this data from law enforcement agencies. I expect they've gotten far too many requests for things like all users in the vicinity of some crime during a certain time frame. Those can be a pain to deal with, and providing the information can be embarrassing for the company even if they are only doing what they are legally required to do. It's just much simpler to not have the data to begin with.
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I would suspect that the main motivation is to eliminate the overhead of dealing with requests for this data from law enforcement agencies. I expect they've gotten far too many requests for things like all users in the vicinity of some crime during a certain time frame. Those can be a pain to deal with, and providing the information can be embarrassing for the company even if they are only doing what they are legally required to do. It's just much simpler to not have the data to begin with.
Damn, points just expired, but this^.
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I would suspect that the main motivation is to eliminate the overhead of dealing with requests for this data from law enforcement agencies. I expect they've gotten far too many requests for things like all users in the vicinity of some crime during a certain time frame. Those can be a pain to deal with, and providing the information can be embarrassing for the company even if they are only doing what they are legally required to do. It's just much simpler to not have the data to begin with.
Damn, points just expired, but this^.
I've seen this stated before and it's probably accurate. But the cell phone companies keep your location based on tower connectivity for a very long time too and that's not all. I remember seeing somewhere that AT&T had call metadata, as in who called whom and for how long, since the mid 1970's.
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I've seen this stated before and it's probably accurate. But the cell phone companies keep your location based on tower connectivity for a very long time too and that's not all. I remember seeing somewhere that AT&T had call metadata, as in who called whom and for how long, since the mid 1970's.
Oh for sure. Google would much prefer the authorities go to the phone companies in any case, that would even capture phones without any Google services at all so they don't take the PR hit.
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Combine this with the fact that no one is paying to see my location data from 5 years ago. I suspect that when Google first started saving this data they imagined that they would be able to sell data about groups of people that had never visited London or some other such thing. It turns out that isn't a particularly useful bit of information for advertisers.
So now Google has a pile of information that is expensive to store, and a legal liability. Of course they want to get rid of it. Never mind that s
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I've said specific GPS coordinates are among the least interesting data collected. Vague (region-level) location data is useful if it's current. But that's easily obtainable by GeoIP and other methods.
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That is a good point. I hadn't thought about regional level data still being useful. Knowing I have been to London is probably worth something (as I suspect it makes it more likely that I will return). For me, however, the value of the data was that it allowed me to show streetside pictures of the AirBNB that I stayed at.
For me it has been interesting to actually show my track on the maps as I tell stories about where I have been. As you might have guessed I am the worst sort of person to talk to abou
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I think the cause is slightly different: With Windows OS and applications having so much spyware ^H^H^H^H telemetry, no-one needs the data from Google's spyware anymore. The majority use-case is the not-paying police search, so Google is downsizing its service to maintain profits.
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I think its primary purpose is stopping needless law enforcement requests. Because of anti-abortion laws in many states, there are probably tons of requests to see if some user visited abortion clinics or other places in other states.
Thus location data is being weaponized - and it's probably adding to the workload of Google as they need to scrutinize each request.
One thing to help solve a murder, another thing when it's being abused so women can get jailed for seeking abortions. And likely the latter are fa
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Maybe. The location history won't be gone, it will just be moved to your device instead of in the cloud. https://www.howtogeek.com/goog... [howtogeek.com] Law enforcement can presumably still get to it, if they take your device.
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Yes, but now they have to go after individual phones. Before they could go fishing and look for anyone that was in a location at a given time. Now they have to suspect a particular person. This changes it from a mass surveillance issue to an individual issue.
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They can already look for anyone who was in a location at a given time, thanks to cell phone towers history.
With 5G, it should be even more precise since it uses beamforming to point the signal in a specific direction.
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Yes, but Google was keeping the data forever, which makes it a nice target for older data. Also, Google is a single point of contact, making it easier to go through them than through multiple cell phone companies. Of course, the next step here is to get cell phone companies to stop saving the data for one to two years. And if they would make some effort at anomizing the data, that would also help, though most such efforts have been shown to be flawed.
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How will this work for the web though? I turn on location history when I'm travelling to some areas because I find it useful to be able to review it on Google Maps, and because it has less of a hit on my phone battery than using GPS logging does.
If it is device only now then it sounds like I will only be able to review it on my phone. I do download and keep the logs on my computer, but Google Maps doesn't have a way to easily upload say a month's worth of tracks and flick through them day-by-day.
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Plus, they can smuggle the data as BobTrackerGPT, an overtrained AI that can faithfully spit out Bob's location history (but definitely isn't Bob's location history).
Subject (Score:2)
I'm sure they'll still keep the valuable parts of the data - just not the details.
Your exact path back and forth along with times isn't as valuable to the company as merely knowing that you visited Pizza Hut 3 times this month.
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Little known fact: when Google dropped the motto, "Don't Be Evil", they actually only dropped the "Don't".
PSA: Clear out timeline if you plan on divorce :) (Score:5, Interesting)
I personally like the timeline for travel. When I go out of town, I often will stop at a bakery or coffee shop, like it, but never think to write it down...then when I am back in the neighborhood, it's handy to see. I went on vacation, liked a lunch spot....couldn't remember it, saw the timeline entry 10 years later and was able to go back to the place. It's creepy, but has legit value. I'd like to see them enhance it...maybe add filters to only retain info for businesses and tourist destinations, for example.
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Yeah, I think it's awesome when I can look up exactly where I went on some trip from years ago. I haven't looked recently but you could even have it drawn as a route in google maps with timestamps.
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I also think it's awesome when I can look up exactly where you went on any trip even from years ago.
Please tell me where I was last year. You seem to know. Either that or you're blindly talking out of your arse given that I will bet you a kidney the GP did not give you access to his Google account.
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If this threatens you, your life must be sad (Score:2)
I also think it's awesome when I can look up exactly where you went on any trip even from years ago. Oh, wait, you didn't think this data will stay at Google forever, did you?
Your life must really suck if you never want to remember things...or the interesting moments of your life are so few and far between you have no problem remembering them perfectly. Also, if you're a cheater, you know you can delete specific events? Delete your visits to your side-piece's house. Your wife and kids never have to know.
However, I don't have things to hide, but many many things I want to remember and don't have the ability to anticipate in the moment which trips will be special. I live i
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This raises another question. At the moment Google Maps will tell me if I visited some place 6 years ago. If they delete old location history, will it forget the date I last visited that place? It can be quite useful to know.
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> saw the timeline entry 10 years later and was able to go back to the place.
10 years later... maybe try something new?
I for one definitely will not enable this horrible privacy invasion thing, just so i can drink coffee at the same spot i drank it 10 years ago, but I can't remember the name of the shop.
> It's creepy, but has legit value
Everything has "legit value", but not much of it. On a scale 0 to 1, it has value of 0.0001. Guess you can find a coffee shop from 10 years ago, that's the value.
On a
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10 years later... maybe try something new?
What makes you think something 10 years later isn't new? Places change. Have you ever been to the same restaurant twice? If so take your own advice just to see how silly you assertion is.
Then disable it...simple solution (Score:2)
> saw the timeline entry 10 years later and was able to go back to the place.
10 years later... maybe try something new?
I for one definitely will not enable this horrible privacy invasion thing, just so i can drink coffee at the same spot i drank it 10 years ago, but I can't remember the name of the shop.
> It's creepy, but has legit value
Everything has "legit value", but not much of it. On a scale 0 to 1, it has value of 0.0001. Guess you can find a coffee shop from 10 years ago, that's the value. On a creepy scale however, it ranks way up. Corporation knowing and tracking my every move and every place i visit at any time of the night and day. Even THEY think it's bad idea.
> maybe add filters to only retain info for businesses and tourist destinations
Social networks, or some of them have a similar feature, it's called "checking in". I think you can find the list of places you checked in, but I don't use this either, so not sure.
Cool...it's not for you...disable it. I think it's actually quite useful, but don't want to force my views on anyone. Grown-ups realize services cost money to run. You can either pay a monthly fee for a service or watch ads. The timeline was a cool feature for me. I liked seeing where I have been, but It's definitely something that should be opt-in....even though the original intent is to figure out what ads are of interest to me. Have you ever watched broadcast TV? The commercials SUUUUUCK. I hate
You never want to take a friend someplace? (Score:2)
10 years later... maybe try something new?
You've never had a great experience and wanted to share it with another human being who wasn't there? I really feel sorry for you. I regularly eat at a place with one person, like it, and want to come back with someone else. I am usually caught up in the moment too much to carefully note places, time of visit, etc.
Re: sanity and morality (Score:2)
Personally I want Google to save the information on servers. I have used it many times on the web to look up my location history from different devices, so I could figure out where I was years in the past. It's been very helpful. Losing that history when I lose a phone is going to suck
Opportunity (Score:2)
Bummer (Score:2)
This is a real bummer. Timeline is one of the most useful features from Google. I use it regularly to make sure I'm claiming all my business expenses when I look at my bank statements. During the height of COVID it was also great for checking to see if I'd been anywhere near exposure sites. And yeah, it's also really nice to be reminded of places I've been or be able to answer "what was that really good bakery I went to five years ago??"