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Comment by TillE | Hacker News Reader

I think I have a similar attitude. I have Google's location tracking on, but search history, YouTube history, etc turned off. I'm much more sensitive to digital privacy because it has complex, wide-ranging implications, whereas my location is a limited set of data that I'm more comfortable sharing with a semi-trusted company.

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I wouldn't want to know a company when, how often and which doctors I consult for one. If you don't want to share your search history you may not want to share your location data either. I would see these as equivalent.

> I wouldn't want to know a company when, how often and which doctors I consult for one.

Depends. A lot of doctor's offices are in "medical parks," so it's entirely possible they don't know which doctor you are seeing or why. They have easier access to that information via your calendar (if you use it) than your location.

Also, even if you did go to a doctor's office in the middle of nowhere with nothing else around and only one doctor working there, that doesn't mean you are there to see the doctor.

For that matter, your location data couldn't be proven to be yours on merit alone. Anyone can be using my car, and anyone can have my phone, at any given time.

You're underestimating the google, my friend. This response also misses the point, just because this specific example may not be relevant to you (what about private practice doctors?), there are hundreds of others that are.

Why turn off search history, youtube history, etc? Google likely gathers all of it anyway, so you might as well see what they keep regardless of your settings.

I suppose it's good in case your account gets leaked.

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