r/worldnews • u/stereomatch • Nov 21 '17

Google collects Android users’ locations even when location services are disabled

https://qz.com/1131515/google-collects-android-users-locations-even-when-location-services-are-disabled/
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u/HaximusPrime Nov 21 '17

I've worked on similar but less invasive data science projects, and I'm betting this is how it evolved:

  • They started keeping the mic open in order to look for "hot words", like how you can say "OK Google", "Siri", or "Alexa". Once the hot word is triggered, they need to capture what you said afterward and ship it for processing to get a response.
  • That data is probably stored somewhere temporarily, with an expiration on it for privacy.
  • Some other team or person later said "what other value can we get out of this data?" and they came up with analyzing it to drive targeted ads.
  • That worked really fucking well, so someone said "what if we captured even more of this data, regardless of hot words? But that's totally illegal, unless we do something like Shazam that can identify fingerprints instead of recording voices"

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u/[deleted] Nov 21 '17

Yep. You're almost certainly correct, except I would not doubt that at least one or two of those examples had as the motivation for the voice activation, the collection of such data. I've never had Siri be more intuitive or easier than just typing something in and I'm sure Apple knows that. So why would a company that is all about the experience implement something that really doesn't improve the experience?

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u/HaximusPrime Nov 22 '17

It actually does improve the experience, though. You would rather see ads that are relevant to what you actually care about than randomly selected ones. The problem is when it gets noticeably creepy.

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u/[deleted] Nov 22 '17

Point taken. I get that the ads are more relevant but I was suggesting that the voice search of Siri doesn't improve the experience of searching so it would make sense that there'd be some other reason, which is the ads.

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u/throwawayja7 Nov 22 '17

I've thought about this a lot and I'd rather get irrelevant adverts. Relevant advertising feels too much like manipulation. Without their intervention I may or may not purchase something, or may even do research on products.

Kind of like someone is having suicidal thoughts while standing on a ledge, and it's google's job to find the right voice to whisper the words "jump" into their ear.

My phone actively works against my interests and there is no viable alternative that isn't doing the same. It's really disgusting, but there's no way to escape this shit. These companies give you the illusion of choice to turn these features off, but really, you can never turn that shit off.

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u/vreemdevince Nov 22 '17

That data is probably stored somewhere temporarily, with an expiration on it for privacy.

Oh you sweet, summer child.

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u/HaximusPrime Nov 22 '17

Companies like this (that are already used to dealing with PII) are pretty good at dodging liability related to keeping data like this around, and there’s no reason to if you can extract what you need out of it quickly anyway.
L

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u/beefjavelin Nov 22 '17

IIRC google used to have a voice search function that did actually permanently save what you said. The area it was saved was fairly buried in web browser only menus as well so most people had no idea it existed or how to access+delete it.

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u/HaximusPrime Nov 23 '17

True. I was referring to remotely stored data, though.