

Your Timeline: Revisiting the world that you’ve explored - sagivo
http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2015/07/your-timeline-revisiting-world-that.html

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notcub
Easily remember all the places I've been, eh? Sounds familiar. Is it like
Google Latitude, which I used to easily remember all the places I had been
until it was retired in 2013?

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andybak
I'm interested to see if this prompts privacy concerns as I feel it should
actually appease them.

The problem with location tracking previously was that it was too easy to not
notice it. Click through a few confirmations during app setup and fail to dig
into menus and you might never know about it.

The more it's front and center (and useful) as a feature the more likely
people with legitimate concerns are to be aware of it and the ability to
disable or selectively remove data.

I was pleased to see 'delete day' was so prominent in the UI.

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sdrothrock
If you're into this kind of tracking but don't necessarily want to go with
Google, check out the Moves app (available on both iOS and Android). It's
pretty no-nonsense and has an API. It guesses at locations based on things
that FourSquare has, which would be its main weakness compared to this, I
think.

Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that one of the things that I love
that uses the Moves API is Gyroscope
([http://www.gyrosco.pe](http://www.gyrosco.pe)). Development seems to have
stagnated a bit, but it's still a really neat site.

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zachlatta
One thing to note, Moves was acquired by Facebook a while back. I believe they
changed their privacy policy after the acquisition to something a bit more
fishy.

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sdrothrock
Thanks for the heads-up! I had no idea.

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imgabe
Google Now is becoming increasingly impressive to me. For instance, last time
I rented a car when it was time for me to return it, it showed me locations of
gas near the airport. That's incredibly useful.

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coldtea
Or, you know, one can open their GPS/Maps app and with 1 or 2 clicks (or even
a voice command) ask for gas stations near the airport.

Google Now sounds paper-clippy and diminishing returns to me...

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kaishiro
I think the point imgabe is trying to make - and I've had a similar experience
- is that you occasionally receive information that _you don't even know you
need to know_. For example, if I'm familiar with an area, I may have a
particular gas station (or whatever) in mind, only to suddenly be given
information that shows there is, in fact, a better option available to me.
It's not (just) a question of saving clicks, it's the idea of giving you
information off the cuff that is contextual to your situation.

Just my two cents.

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amelius
Usually, the information is just noise though. And the information is never
essential. That combination makes it something I'd rather not use.

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icebraining
Well, it's not exactly hard to disable:
[https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2824784?hl=en](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2824784?hl=en)

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amelius
I'm getting tired of disabling stuff. I want my services to stay unchanged,
unless I tell them otherwise.

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flarg
Not like Google and the (in the UK) the coppers don't already track our
movements - so it's nice to see what they can see.

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omarforgotpwd
"Show this ad to people who walk past my coffee shop on the way to work, at a
date and time when they are walking to work, and haven't already stopped at a
coffee shop." \-- Future Google Ads Feature in 2016

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akx
To be honest, I'd be alright with that as a consumer.

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mistermann
It's a bit surprising they didn't implement this long ago. I quit like this
google tracking feature, I can see how some people might have privacy concerns
but I don't personally care at all.

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magnusss
Location history has been available for at least two years on Android, but
without many of the bells and whistles described here such as location-delete
and photo location-marking. But recording where I am at every waking -- and
sleeping, for that matter -- moment and storing it in google's cloud for it to
be analyzed, correlated with my search history, sold to advertisers, and
possibly hacked or subpoenaed seems shamelessly intrusive and voyeuristic. So
no, I am not signing up for this. If I forget where I parked I'll just walk
around in concentric circles of increasing radius while repeatedly activating
my remote until my car chirps its presence. Small price to pay for maintaining
the last vestige of privacy I think I have.

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nadavw
super interesting...Google's really digging into mapping, first with the
revamped MyMaps and now with this...I'm just wondering if a timeline is the
best way to see places...If I had a great date with my girlfriend a few months
ago, I don't remember the day or even month...there's gotta be a better UX,
no?

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UserRights
They write:

"Your Timeline is private and visible only to you"

I would like to challenge Google to provide proof for this: make it work
without needing to login anywhere and without sending data to any place.

This will be great marketing and it is heavily needed to restore trust into a
US based company after it has been destroyed completely by authoritarian
lunatics.

