Google "accidentally" forgot to tell people that they included a mic in those devices. That's still illegal.
>Hawley pointed out on Tuesday that a user's location is sent to Google hundreds of times a day, even when the phone is not in use. In fact, Hawley said, a user's location is tracked "every four minutes, or 14 times an hour, roughly 340 times during a 24-hour period," even when the phone is not in use.
>DeVries confessed that "location information is absolutely core to making a mobile phone work the way that you want it to work." He said that Google has an "optional service" called Location History that is opt-in and "can collect location over time when people turn that on."
>"But Google collects geolocation data even if Location History is turned off, correct?" Hawley pressed.
>"Yes, senator, it can in order to operate other services—"
This should be illegal and was admitted to congress -- justifying it with BS excuses -- but virtually no major media outlet is covering this.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/google-tracks-you-even-when-loc... (one of 3 articles I found about this)
(The fact that congress called them in to testify is news, since it means maybe some politicians are going to make noises about how unacceptable this is, or perhaps even introduce a bill.)
Unfortunately most of these news publications rely on things like Google's YT + Adsense for content distribution and revenue, so they may not want to anger their overlords. I also doubt anything will come out of this hearing -- people don't seem to care about privacy and they want convenience. Although this senator understands the privacy concerns, most of his peers are clueless.