
Why does Google Play need constant GPS? - dragonbonheur
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/12/turn_off_location_services_go_ahead_says_google_well_still_track_you/
======
darren_
FTA: "The same is true of Google Maps. Although it makes far more sense for
Maps to have access to your location, the latest build doesn't give you the
option of turning it off. To do that, you have to turn off GPS on your phone
altogether."

You can, of course, switch off location for google maps on android, and I'm
surprised this article wasn't fact-checked for that.
Settings->Apps->Maps->Permissions. Same as any other app.

I'm assuming the confusion is because the 'location settings' option in maps
settings takes you to the phone's global location settings screen, which does
only offer a global toggle. I don't think there's anything nefarious there,
it's just that the settings menu isn't terribly well thought out.

disclaimer: googler on maps, but not android maps

edit: The article has been updated and now reads: "Although it makes far more
sense for Maps to have access to your location, the latest build doesn't give
you a decent option of turning it off. If you do cut off Maps' access to your
location, "basic features of your device may no longer function as intended,"
the operating system warns."

Not that they've bothered to update the rest of the article.

~~~
tdkl
You assume everyone is on M and later who support this.

Classic living in the bubble.

~~~
AlexB138
How is that "living in a bubble"? The last two major versions of the software
support the feature. It's nearly a year and a half old.

Classic finding things to be offended about.

~~~
tdkl
Because lets not ignore the fact that more then 50% of devices won't ever see
this update, which makes it moot to suggest how to work around something that
was taken away. That's classic Google "ship it and fuck the rest" mentality
bubble.

~~~
darren_
Nothing was 'taken away' for pre-M users either, at least Maps-wise.

This article (as originally written, they've updated it since) was stating
that a privacy feature that never existed had been taken away. There never was
a location services toggle for specifically Maps, and pre-M it's not possible
to make one that works (at least, not one that someone who doesn't trust maps
with their location should be using).

------
taspeotis
> Needless to say, this is not making some users very happy. Security
> researcher Mustafa Al-Bassam reported on Twitter that he "almost had a heart
> attack" when he walked into a McDonald's and was prompted on his phone to
> download the fast food restaurant's app.

Apple has iBeacons which can do this, sans GPS. I wonder if this user would be
just as upset the prompt wasn't initiated from GPS location tracking?

Personally I think they are cool tech in theory but in practice kind of
creepy.

~~~
jfktrey
Really, the only reason it's creepy is because it actualizes the difference
between what a user thinks the location services know, and what they actually
know. Your phone pretty much always knows roughly where you are, it usually
just doesn't brag about it.

~~~
compiler-guy
Your phone knows your location, of course, but doesn't have to communicate
your location to a third party.

~~~
Silhouette
Mobile networks track the location of connected devices all the time. That's
how they know where to find you if someone calls you or sends you a message.

The problem we have with a lot of modern technology, and particularly
communications and payment technologies, is that while some degree of personal
identification and association with specific locations or actions is necessary
to perform their function, that same information is readily repurposed and
easily shared if there are no rules to prevent it, or almost equivalently, if
there are no effective sanctions if rules that do exist are breached.

~~~
leephillips
Well said. I would add that while "Mobile networks track the location of
connected devices all the time. That's how they know where to find you if
someone calls you or sends you a message" this is at the cell level; Google
knows what particular store you're in, by using its WiFi database and GPS:
much finer grained.

~~~
Silhouette
_this is at the cell level; Google knows what particular store you 're in, by
using its WiFi database and GPS: much finer grained._

For a single tower, yes. In practice, if you're within range of multiple cell
towers, a little physics and mathematics will determine your location much
more precisely, assuming knowledge of each tower's exact location, the
relative signal strength received from your device at each tower, and ideally
any confounding factors like awkward terrain or local sources of interference.

As an aside, if things are going wrong on the network, it's a fair bet that
engineers will be out driving around with directed antennae that will find any
given rogue transmitter even using a single receiver given a bit of time. This
one's not so much of a privacy concern, though, given that it only tends to be
used as necessary to resolve specific problems.

------
leephillips
A bit off topic, but I also almost had a heart attack recently when I got a
notification identifying a product that I had recently taken a picture of. I
have Google Goggles installed (it does this), but I had taken this picture
with the normal camera app. A recent update sends all the user's pictures to
the Goggles service. That means that any picture you take with the phone is
sent to Google's servers for analysis, unless you know it's happening and
figure out how to turn it off. (I was also impressed, as this was an obscure
product: a bottle of fermented rice drink from Korea.)

------
ChuckMcM
I expect the location requirement is coming to Google from the media
companies. As lots of media is licensed for a particular market, and there are
a number of easy VPN solutions that can disguise your IP (and your nominal
location) the only way to be "sure" of where you are is to ask the GPS unit.
This allows Google Play to do "region coding" and for apps to call a standard
API to enforce their own region coding requirements (say netflix or other
streaming services).

------
hyperpallium
Wifi gives pretty good location data, and most Mcdonalds provide wifi.

By default, Android 5 lollipop constantly scans wifi (draining battery), and
the toggle-off is hidden in some menus.

~~~
hammock
If it's Wifi, all McDonald's has to do is buy targeted ads against web traffic
coming from the IPs of its Wifi routers.

------
MatthewWilkes
The McDonalds prompting sounds more like a use of the Nearby Notifications API
in Play Services (
[https://developers.google.com/nearby/notifications/overview](https://developers.google.com/nearby/notifications/overview)
) than simply due to location monitoring. I can't say for sure, though.

------
whocomments
"almost had a heart attack"

Did he figure out if it the Google location tracking or the McDonald's food?

:)

------
Psilidae
It's weird that the writer is suggesting it's mysterious why Google Play would
even need access to GPS, when at least one reason is obvious from the example
in the article itself: to prompt people to download certain apps when they
enter various locations.

~~~
lern_too_spel
There is no way to tell the Google Play Store where your stores are in the
developer console. This is just a beacon, and the security researcher confused
Google Play Services with Google Play Store.

------
mtgx
Relevant:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/blackberry/comments/3s26ym/priv_own...](https://www.reddit.com/r/blackberry/comments/3s26ym/priv_owners_a_request/)

Google Play Services probably does it so that all Android in-app ads can use
the location as well through it.

I doubt this is very legal in the EU, as the user hasn't given "explicit
consent" for this. It might be worth mentioning it to _@vestager_ on Twitter,
who's already been lining up official antitrust charges against Google.

~~~
shostack
So that is basically an end run around blocking location services on an
individual app basis?

~~~
tacomonstrous
No, apps need the location permission to use Play location services.

------
totalZero
I wonder if there's a more sinister reason for this than simply, "we want more
data for ads." It always freaks me out that Google asks me to review places
where I eat, drink, and hang out.

~~~
darren_
The sinister reason for this is that Google wants better data about places (so
the service is more useful, so more people use it, so more ads are served, and
so on).

------
tdkl
I see the location icon every time I launch the Google Play Store app and
sometimes when unlocking the phone for reasons unknown. Nearby is disabled
(which still leaves the Nearby Google Play Services (GPS) service running
sometimes).

Google Play Services are a trojan horse and a mobile device battery murderer.
It takes away the power over your device. Have issues with it? Tough luck, if
you'll downgrade, it'll be updated back automatically.

I want Android before 2012 back and not this proprietary fuckup.

------
fowlerpower
Don't be evil. Well that's been thrown out the window...

~~~
topbanana
Come on - evil? It's not like they're selling your location history to
kidnapping gangs. It's just advertising - it helps keep the economy churning.

~~~
stonogo
Yes, evil. It also keeps some folks' stomachs churning.

There is a certain segment of society who knows exactly what's being done with
this massive surveillance network. That segment generally does not contain the
people who are under surveillance. The fact that Google knows it has to be coy
about it knows that it's unsavory. And exactly what assurances do we have that
Google is properly vetting access to this information, given their complete
lack of customer service and their historical inability to properly run
adsense, their core business?

~~~
jptman
> And exactly what assurances do we have that Google is properly vetting
> access to this information, given their complete lack of customer service
> and their historical inability to properly run adsense, their core business?
> reply

You could probably ask the thousands of ex-employees who'd love to make $$ by
breaking the story to the media. Don't you think it would sell?

Also, often when I hear stories about that company not providing support, it's
for a service that has at the very least hundreds of thousands of
clients/users, a lot of whom pay very little or nothing. How would _you_
provide support to all of them? Would someone who spends $1Mil / yr on Ads
have trouble reaching someone quickly?

------
angryasian
I don't see what the issue is. Google knows your location, your phone provider
knows your location without asking, and probably many other apps that you've
given location access to knows where your location is.

They can use information like GPS, ip address and cell towers. So I don't know
why this clickbait article is just pointing out these two google apps.

~~~
lisper
> I don't see what the issue is.

Seriously?

> Google knows your location,

Yes, that's the issue: you can no longer deny Google the ability to know your
location as long as either Maps or Play is installed.

> your phone provider knows your location without asking

First, Google is not my phone provider, and second, my provider only has
access to cell tower info, not GPS info. GPS info is _much_ more precise than
tower info, and it's obviously not possible to deny cell tower info to the
provider.

> and probably many other apps that you've given location access to knows
> where your location is.

The key phrase there being "that you have given access to". You cannot turn
off access to Maps and Play and more. That's the problem.

------
Grue3
So, this is what murders my phone's battery? I thought it was weird that GPS
icon has been always active recently, and that my battery juice tends to start
rapidly dropping sometimes without any reason. Now the only way I can use my
phone without constantly charging is turning GPS off completely.

~~~
babebridou
It's really strange to me. I noticed yesterday that the Play app started
leaking battery like crazy on my Nexus 5. 100%-0% within 10 hours _of idle_ ,
33% due to Google Play Store.

Today, 6 hours since the full charge I'm looking again at the battery screen:
38% battery left.

16% Chrome (Background CPU: 1min 24s, Foreground CPU: 16s, GSM: 2h36min 58s)

16% Google Play Store (Total CPU: 10s, GPS: 6h 20min 6s, GSM: 1min28s)

6% Screen

4% Android system

Chrome is most surprising, as it's not usually there. I did a single web
search three hours ago though. The phone is idle all day otherwise. There's
something rotten in the mobile software industry that's literally making our
pockets warm for no good reason.

Dear Google, please at least be a good citizen in your own ecosystem.

------
guelo
It seems like Google is trying to slowly boil the frog of location based ads.
It started with Map Places reviews, which doesn't feel like an ad but it's
annoying. I haven't seen anything like the McDonalds ad but that would
infuriate me. At least I can disable permissions on the Play app.

------
mark_l_watson
Is this a big deal? I almost always turn GPS off anyway. I turn GPS on when I
am travelling, and very occasionally for a minute if I use Google Map. GPS
runs the battery down. Is GPS something most users leave turned on?

I thought the article would be about tracking via wifi use, which they
probably do.

~~~
overcast
GPS is nice to add exif info to photos. Also, who wants to turn GPS on and
off, every time you're using maps?

~~~
recursive
Me. It's like two clicks. It used to be one when I kept a widget for that
purpose on my home screen. I also turn off bluetooth and wifi if I'm not using
them.

~~~
overcast
You know what happens when you force a user to do an extra two clicks to
accomplish something that should take one? They don't do it.

~~~
recursive
Yes. I'm not sure how that's relevant. I'm not just "some user". I'm actually
me, and I know what my actual behavior actually is. I'm just describing what I
actually do, not prescribing what someone _should_ do.

------
okket
What do you expect from an OS developed by a company that only makes money by
selling ads?

~~~
EJTH
Thats not true! They also make lots of money dumping our private data and
transactions into XKEYSCORE

------
cosfoo
On iOS you'll also be tracked 24/7 by Google if you have Waze installed.
Hiding behind the "being a traffic crowdsourcing app, we need location data
from everyone" it doesn't allow you to use the location sharing option "while
using the app", it's either always or never. And there's a purple arrow next
to it each time you're driving, a sign that it's currently tracking you, even
if the app is closed. (Gray means past 24h). Probably they use accelerometer
data to know when you've started driving.

------
helthanatos
Well, I personally have my GPS off most of the time. That doesn't prevent
mobile or WiFi location snooping, but it doesn't eat as much battery as it
would if it was left on. Google Play Services are a terrible waste of battery.
It's sad there are no options to opt out (provided by Google). Most people
don't know/care about opt outs normally, anyway, so it wouldn't be a great
loss of revenue to provide such an option.

------
lern_too_spel
Google Play Services provides Google's aGPS abstraction. Whenever an app asks
for location data and doesn't want to use much battery, it asks Google Play
Services, which will return coarse location data, cached location data, or GPS
data as requested by the app.

McDonald's uses a beacon protocol to suggest downloading an app without using
location data.

This security researcher just doesn't understand anything about his phone.

------
cachvico
Seems to be Android's answer to iOS lock-screen app suggestions (since iOS 8;
2014) - [https://techcrunch.com/2014/06/03/apple-delivers-location-
ba...](https://techcrunch.com/2014/06/03/apple-delivers-location-based-app-
suggestions-on-your-lock-screen-in-ios-8/) ?

------
taormina
I feel like this is the same thing that Samsung does with Bluetooth. Whenever
you disable it, they make sure that the low-power Bluetooth stays on.

"Otherwise, how would our beacons and geofences work on the customers who
explicitly don't want it?"

At least Google can claim that they are collecting location on behalf of the
rest of the Android apps on your phone.

------
jwatte
My guess: GPS tells you what country and city you are in, so licensed Google
play content can be restricted by geography. All hail our overlords the
content restriction owners!

------
relics443
I'm willing to bet that they're using the Nearby and Geofence APIs (or even
the Awareness API) for this, as opposed to keeping GPS running all the time.

------
em3rgent0rdr
Use Cyanogenmod sans Google, or Replicant. Use OpenStreetMap apps like osmand
for navigation.

~~~
jasonkostempski
I've been trying to whittle down my Nexus to F-Droid only apps because I want
to eventually get on a ROM without Google. I'm stuck on the native phone and
messenger apps because I'm on Project Fi and the way they run that stuff is
odd but I know there are good replacements for those once I get off that. The
one app I can't get seem to give up willingly is Maps and it's all because of
search. OsmAnd does navigation just fine for me, but finding the place I want
to go is really, really difficult. In a pinch, I don't want to be stuck doing
web searches to find addresses and then figure out how to turn them into
coordinates. I've got AddressToGPS which is ok but it doesn't always find what
I'm looking for and there's no ability to search near my current location that
I can find, which is a key feature. Is there a better solution?

------
novaleaf
i bought an android 6.0 device a couple days ago. (Moto G4) On android 6 you
can enable/disable individual permissions on each app, however Google Play
already had location disabled.

------
Animats
You can use Android phones without a Google account or Google Play. But, as an
act of revenge, Google broke voice dialing for people who do that.

------
duncan_bayne
When people ask me why I want my next phone to be an Ubuntu device, I point
them at articles like these.

~~~
justinclift
If you're thinking Canonical wouldn't sell its users down the river, there's a
bridge for sale in Brooklyn you might like...

~~~
mastazi
Unfortunately you are right. "GNU/Linux inside" is not sufficient to guarantee
your privacy (not to mention that Android is Linux-based too): what we would
really need is a community-developed mobile OS.

~~~
abawany
Hopefully eventually this will become more prevalent
[https://wiki.debian.org/Mobile](https://wiki.debian.org/Mobile) .

Also, I will say that some of the AOSP-based distros, such as Cyanogenmod, run
just fine without Google Play installed; you get most of the (open-source)
apps from F-Droid or if you need something from the Play store, sideloading or
downloading from APKPure is a possibility.

~~~
mastazi
Thanks, as an Android user I should probably go for Cyanogenmod. I have used
it in the past and I liked it.

------
CPAhem
No comment from Google as to why they do this.

~~~
AtheistOfFail
Give you two guesses and the answer is "Your data as a guinea pig is worth a
lot"

~~~
trendia
The data is not even worth that much. Estimates are that it's less than $1 /
user / month.

But Google does it anyway, because it costs them less than that to implement.

edit: For instance, Facebook says each user is worth about $0.73 / user /
month. [1]

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/28/how-
much-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jan/28/how-much-are-you-
worth-to-facebook)

~~~
serge2k
North americans are worth over 4 dollars a month according to that.

~~~
trendia
4 dollars per 3 months:

> If you happen to live in Europe, including the UK, you’re only worth one-
> third of a North American to Facebook, at $4.50 every three months, while
> the “rest of the world”, which includes most developing nations are only
> worth $1.22 per user.

That's about $1.50 / user / month... which is higher than I thought. brb,
going to start social network

~~~
serge2k
> You may be surprised to hear that a US or Canadian user is worth $13.54 each
> quarter to Facebook,

4 dollars a month.

------
Vera527
It's time to switch to Apple.

~~~
taormina
Apple does this too. They just bury it 4 or 5 system levels deep before you
can see that they track you everywhere and recognize your home, work, and
other frequently visited locations.

~~~
okket
> Apple does this too.

Do you have any proof that Apple uses this information for advertising
purposes? Their privacy statements say otherwise. This would be a huge deal.

~~~
taormina
I have no proof that it is being used for advertising, but they do still have
a copy of everything. Who's to know what their future thoughts about
advertising will be. It's their Frequent Locations feature.

