
Developers Can Now Access Locations of 250 Million Phones Across U.S. Carriers - bengross
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/developers_can_now_access_locations_of_250_million.php
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asmithmd1
Don't get worried about privacy, in order to locate a phone a potential user
of your location based service first has to create an account at
<http://www.veriplace.com/> Then respond to to an SMS to the phone number to
opt in.

As a developer you then have to have your application approved and only then
do you have the privilege of using their 5 step process to try to get a
phone's location

<http://developer.veriplace.com/devportal/developerguide>

A cell tower location will cost you around .02 and an attempt at a more
accurate will cost around .05

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freejoe76
I'm looking through all this, and one question comes to mind: you iphone users
know when an app first asks if it can access your location data? Well, I'm
thinking here: Does that mean it can access your location data _even when
you're not using that app?_

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wmf
In the age of multitasking, I'm not sure that "when you're not using the app"
is even defined. But yeah, it looks like this service can get your location
_even if you haven't installed an app at all_.

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ktsmith
It very much sounds like the carriers are selling out their customers location
data.

My first thought when I read about this was how the hell do I opt out. I'm
guessing you won't be able to until the carriers are inevitably sued.

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bengross
The company says the service is opt in this press release:
<http://www.location-labs.com/press_article.php?newsid=80> and in the comments
here: <http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/21/location-labs/> and here:
[http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/is_geofencing_the_next_...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/is_geofencing_the_next_evolution_for_location_apps_location_labs_thinks_so.php)

Although, I have to say this is not at all clear (at least to me) from reading
through their website or even by reading their privacy policy
<http://location-labs.com/privacy.php>

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1337p337
This article seems to resemble PR copypasta, but over-looking that, it is a
little comforting that the thing is opt-in.

That kind of sheds doubt on the 250M figure, though. Do they mean 250M
potential users?

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fulford
Exactly - 250M potential users is what they mean. Right now they probably have
very few consumer opt-ins.

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alanh
Not a word about opt-in vs. opt-out. Privacy, schmivacy?

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inerte
Reading the developer section of the company website, I understand it's opt-in
(per app).

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fulford
It is 100% opt-in, but there is no "app" needed on the actual phone - so
you're totally right if by "per app" you mean "per developer" or "per use
case." So I might allow one company to locate my phone for a family-finder
scenario, and another company to locate my phone for local weather alerts, for
example. No app required in either case. Hope this helps.

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Judson
Anyone have an idea about how they are getting the location data? Tower
triangulation?

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fulford
Their contracts with the carriers allow for remote pings of the GPS chip (if
there is GPS on the handset). Otherwise it's just cell tower triangulation.

