In recently unredacted court documents from the Arizona Attorney General’s lawsuit against Google has revealed how obsessed Google is with users’ location information. Digital Content Next’s CEO, Jason Kint, wrote a long Twitter threadthat basically highlighted some of the juicy bits from the documents — the TL;DR is that Google did (and is still doing) everything to make sure that it gets Android users’ location information, among others.
I stopped using Android a long time ago, before that I used to carry two smartphones, iOS and Android (one on each major telco), due to privacy reasons. I am not comfortable with the amount of data Google has been collecting. It is one thing to voluntary provide your information, and another to have no choice in the data collection.
I also remember the Associated Press article on how much data is being recorded by an Android phone even when Location History is set to OFF! That setting is there just for show then, right? The documents revealed that Google used the Web and App Activity (WAA) to collect your location information!
These documents just revealed the extent Google is doing to make sure that Android users will always provide Google with their location information. Why do you think that they only provide users with a choice to automatically delete location history, except for the last three months, when they can just stop logging your location information, right?
“whenever a user of an Android phone with GMS (Google Mobile Services) wants to share their location with a third-party, they must also share it with Google”
The said documents revealed that this location information concern went as high up as the CEO, Sundar Pichai, and yet Google did everything to ensure that that little gem of information is always collected — to the extent of burying the settings deep enough so users will not easily be able to restrict the flow of this information!
You know how bad it really is when Google’s own employee, as per the documents, went “G-Free” (Google Free?) by removing Google’s Android off of their smartphone and replacing it with a Google-free LineageOS so it won’t continuously feed the location hungry monster.
This is just a glimpse of what revelations will result from the lawsuits filed by several (I think almost all of them) US state attorneys general against Google, with Google fighting tooth and nail to keep documents redacted and/or sealed from public view.
It is recommended that you check out the documents, or read the Twitter thread for a quick summary, and decide if you still want to keep feeding Google with your location information or wait for how Google’s PR will spin this.