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

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.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com