Google Photos's automatic indexing of pictures is one of its best features. They're not trying to figure out where you have been, they're just saving you the work of tagging your photos. If you put your SF pictures in an album called "Trip to SF" in Apple Photos and sync it with iCloud, Apple "knows where you have been" just as much as Google does.
It's not really the same because if the NSA wants to know where everyone has been, something automatic that applies to everyone is of significant value, while trying to mine Apple's data of people personal folder hierarchies is worthless.
Also, we know Google is actively engaged in mining this data in order to do something. Today it's to improve the user experience which I believe is an honest motivation, but inevitably this empowers a surveillance apparatus that both governments and powerful corporations want.
I think it's worth pushing back a bit on the sort of standard operating procedure of tech companies today, and question where this is all leading. Apple are definitely not saints, but at least they provide something resembling a dissenting viewpoint on the issue of customer data privacy.
That is true, their picture indexing is magical and I don't have any issue if they knew I went to SFO, I mean whats the big deal?
Just a story, I took a picture of my car three months ago, someone asked me to show a picture of my car, I just went to google photos, typed "Grey car" and voila ... This is the future.
