
Waze: Google’s New Spying Tool - jzdziarski
http://www.zdziarski.com/blog/?p=4827
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compbio
The "I am not a lawyer" should be in the back of your mind whenever the author
talks about the legalities of this software agreement.

It is possible to both anonymize and aggregate GPS-data to a degree where it
is neigh impossible to reverse engineer.

The "we provide data to governments when we have a good faith belief that
legal standards are met" is boilerplate. From Facebook, to Atlassian to
Wordpress.com, all privacy policies have that wording.

I found this article to be unfounded and harsh of tone. Google doesn't even
need Waze to spy on you. If anything: Google-NSA spying has decreased since
the Snowden-revelations. They now actively secure most communications, lobby
to be more transparent to their users, and fix security bugs like Heartbleed.
All the while keeping their profitable marketing profiles on you (call that
spying and the word loses its meaning).

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muaddirac
I'm an avid waze user due to a long and traffic-dependent commute. It's hard
to get worked up about the concerns raised in this article simply because I
view where I'm driving essentially as public information (as almost all of my
commute is on public property), and because the data collected is so clearly
necessary for providing the features the app advertises.

> _Your GPS location and driving routes. Of course, some of this is needed to
> deliver the services described, however it does not need to be stored
> indefinitely. Waze’s privacy policy states that this information will be
> used to “create a detailed location history of all the journeys you have
> made”. The question, of course, is “for whom, exactly?”._

It's for you, and for the Waze community at large. When you drive, your most
recent routes are saved and you are allowed to edit some area around your
route for some amount of time after. This allows you to update the map both
for yourselves an others (new road closure near your house? Mark it on the
map), which will affect Waze's routing when giving you directions. Tracking
where you've been ensures you only edit areas you're legitimately familiar
with.

> _To spam you with marketing and advertising materials when using Waze;
> specifically location-specific advertisements using your GPS history._

These are pretty unobtrusive, and I don't really disagree with them in
principal. There are already location-specific ads along my route in the form
of billboards and signs.

> _To email you marketing and advertising materials_

I've never gotten an email from Waze, but I could easily block it if I did. I
would only be concerned if they were giving out my email to other third-party
advertisers that would be difficult to block.

> _To conduct surveys and questionnaires (possibly for others, using your
> data)_

I've seen these a couple of times, they're easy to ignore and dismiss. They
only show up when you're stopped somewhere. And they're pretty benign, like
"Have you seen one of these brands on the map recently?" (referring to little
fast food icons which I find rather helpful)

But the biggest thing to note here is that you can turn off Waze at any time,
and if you don't trust it to not use GPS when sleeping, then you can enforce
that at the OS level.

~~~
azakai
> It's hard to get worked up about the concerns raised in this article simply
> because I view where I'm driving essentially as public information (as
> almost all of my commute is on public property), and because the data
> collected is so clearly necessary for providing the features the app
> advertises.

That part makes sense - you're driving on public roads - but the article
mentions a very long list of _additional_ information that is collected on
you. Most of which is _not_ clearly necessary for providing the advertised
features. That's the worrying part.

~~~
wongarsu
In this context it's worth noting that Waze is available in Europe too. And
contrary to the US, in Europe you generally have an expectation of privacy
even in public and on public property.

Of course you can give that privacy up voluntarily, but I don't think being
tracked on your daily commute would sit well with most people over here.

~~~
cwang912
I totally get why people don't want to be tracked, even on public roads, but
the transportation engineering/urban planning part of me feels like the
(anonymized) data would be FANTASTIC for transportation agencies who spend
time/money on getting similar but less accurate data through surveys.

I considered trying to figure out if people could voluntarily submit their
trip/GPS data (also anonymized) to agencies instead of the traditional survey
but have little idea how to do that kind of stuff.

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Oletros
If all of the things have been found in the EULA why it is called spying?

~~~
Oletros
It would have been a great thing explaining what is wrong in my comment

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higherpurpose
> _This is just too messy for me. Waze’s privacy policy guarantees anything
> but privacy. It’s a misnomer to call it a privacy policy, when in fact, it’s
> a very lengthy document granting the company (and Google) the rights to
> claim ownership of, and potentially abuse, your personal data. There are
> virtually no consumer rights stated in this privacy policy whatsoever, in
> fact. The entire policy only benefits Waze legally, financially, and in
> virtually every other way._

I propose "Privacy Policies" be renamed to "Tracking Policies", because that's
what they really are these days. They are all about the ways in which you
allow the company to track you, keep and use your data.

