Yep I was just going to say this. Google already sells your location data to advertisers, they are not the hero in this story.
Google makes it pretty clear that they do not sell any personal information to advertisers: https://safety.google/privacy/ads-and-data/
https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/1722043?hl=en
"Google Ads location targeting allows your ads to appear in the geographic locations that you choose: countries, areas within a country, a radius around a location, or location groups, which can include places of interest, your business locations, or tiered demographics.
Location targeting helps you focus your advertising on the areas where you'll find the right customers, and restrict it in areas where you won't. This specific type of targeting could help increase your return on investment (ROI) as a result."
In a sense Google is spyware and adware at the same time. It shame these two terms are used less now then they used too, since they lost their meaning when so many apps and your Android phone itself is one.
That’s what the phone carrier is doing.
They monetize location, but from my perspective they do so in a way that’s more respectful of the person, because it’s in their interest to do so.
The carriers just sell data points and lack the ability or desire to add value to them.
https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Advanced-Features/...
Disclosure: I work at big G, not on ads.
However, it's still selling personal information to adbuyers. And, I don't think you can say "nobody is successfully using ads to determine ad clickers general location with a X mile radius".
This surveillance thing is getting out of hand and Google is annoyed that shady corporations tries to get ground which might bring new laws.
Of course. And I'm sure that you can find some people who would get riled up that they incremented a counter in a location-oriented semi-anonymous bucket of clicks. But I think most people are substantially less riled up about that than they would be if Google were actually disclosing their individual locations directly to buyers. It seems like a lot of the anti-Google folks on here equivocate between these two, and I speculate it's because consciously or subconsciously they realize the latter narrative is much more emotionally compelling to a much broader segment of the population. To me, that's deceptive rhetoric.
- they don't get your location if you don't click on the ad. Since people don't click on ads very often, only rarely does an advertisers get a person's location, and without a name attached.
- Mobile phone companies were letting people query a user's location based on their real name. How would you do that with advertising?
We need to move beyond one-bit thinking. Location-revealing services aren't all the same.
https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2453995?hl=en "Device location: Depending on a user's location settings, we may be able to use a precise location for advertising, based on one of these sources of location data:
GPS: Accuracy varies depending on GPS signal and connection. Wi-Fi: Accuracy should be similar to the access range of a typical Wi-Fi router. Bluetooth: If Bluetooth and/or Bluetooth scanning are enabled on a device, a publicly broadcast Bluetooth signal can provide an accurate indication of location Google's cell ID (cell tower) location database: Used in the absence of Wi-Fi or GPS. Accuracy is dependent on how many cell towers are located within an area and available data, and some devices don't support cell ID location."
Geo IP data is accurate ~85% at the city level and ~99% at the state level, meaning they're approximately the same.
Facebook’s used that like, too.
So, in many ways they don't sell a person's data to advertisers, per se. However, they do control access to people located in a given area. Not sure there is much of a meaningful difference, for most people.
One way it leaks is that an advertiser generally knows what ad campaign a user clicked on. So if that ad campaign was only sent to a particular location, you know where the user was when they clicked on the ad.
These advertiser websites know your city already by the act of you visiting their website.
"You can choose one of the default radius settings or set a custom radius from a minimum of 1 km to a maximum of 1,000 km."
https://support.google.com/richmedia/answer/7279179?hl=en&re...
Knowing that someone in 6,000 people in an area clicked on your coffee ad is not leaking GPS data. Which is probably why bounty hunters are buying the data directly from cell carriers and not running targeted Google ads.
It's also not "one in 6,000 people" if it's someone who signs up for some service via the ad. That particular someone might not realize that the service knows their location.
The point in 1:6,000 is that whether it's ad targeting or just regular internet traffic, there isnt enough specificity to "leak" data about the person.
You can split hairs over, "Well what of they join that 1:6000 with other PII" and it's the same with Geo IP. The user gives up that data but it's not different than just visit the page normally.
I'm confused by your reference to me and my concerns. This isn't a discussion about me; I was making a point about leakage of location information.