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Comment by Anderkent | Hacker News Reader

For most people it's not spam.

They're using it as a way of increasing their ad revenue by getting free data from their users. How is that not spam? If I send you unsolicited emails asking you to give me photos of products you use which I'll then sell ads for and keep all the revenue, would that not be spam?

I did not sign up for any product promotion notifications, so if I receive any it's spam.

They pay the user for it with increased Google Drive space, a free subscription to the NYT, etc.

More like robbing people of their time.

If the user doesn't like it, she can turn it off. If the user likes it, she gets paid with free services. All other users get the benefit of free information about the business, whether they have location tracking on or not. I don't see the problem here.

Some Google products are stupidly designed, but this one looks like it's doing the right thing.

Only if you sign up for Local Guides.

I did out of curiosity after I answered a few questions, and sincerely regretted it. The notifications and junk e-mail were never-ending until I blocked them all. And my time is not worth that little.

You don't have to subscribe to the emails to get the benefits. The notifications are the same as when you're not a local guide. I also signed up to get the benefits.

I'm pretty sure you do have to subscribe to the e-mails.

You may not have to stay subscribed, but that's true in a sense for most junk mail.

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