In a statement to TechCrunch, Google explained: Continuing to maintain a history of locations when a user has deliberately indicated their preference to have no such history recorded is simply ridiculous. This kind of confusing and underhanded, not to say malicious, practice is far from uncommon among tech companies, but this is a particularly indefensible one. There are separate controls for different types of location collection, isolated from each other and each unaffected by the other’s deletion or restriction, but it is not explained why, or why for example some can be deleted in bulk but others must be done one by one. But deleting location history points was one of the main points of criticism for Google in the dark patterns paper, which found that hardly any of their testers could figure out how to do it. The deletion of these points, by the way, is one of Google’s other defenses: you can go delete them at any time. Meanwhile location is still recorded silently and without notifying the user, for example, that such and such an action will produce a location record that will be saved, and giving them a chance to delete it or recall the action. The user is duped into thinking that their locations are no longer being recorded by Google, down to a warning from the company that some services might not work correctly if Location History is disabled. It’s not exactly a deception on Google’s part, but rather what appears to be a deliberate understatement of the company’s other location tracking practices.įurther, it falls squarely under the concept of dark patterns. Since that was clearly not true, Google may find itself in serious legal trouble with the FTC and privately filed lawsuits.Īlthough it makes sense that checking the weather would require location data, it makes less sense that the data would be collected systematically, in direct contradiction with what the user has been told. Update: The language in the previous paragraph was only added around the time of the AP report, meaning that originally the setting only said that data is no longer stored. Some location data may be saved as part of your activity on other Google services, like Search and Maps.” To be fair, this is explained, after a fashion, when you turn off location history ( here): “This setting does not affect other location services on your device, like Google Location Services and Find My Device. Yet many apps and services Google provides when Location History has been turned off, in fact, do record and store your location. When you turn off (technically “pause,” a choice of words in itself troubling) “Location History,” a major Google account-level setting, you are told: “With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.” In a wonderfully clear example of “dark patterns” designed to mislead users and retain control over their data, Google continues tracking your location even when you turn off Location History and are told that “the places you go are no longer stored.” Google says it tells users, but its disclosure is the bare minimum and users are discouraged from further interference with data collection.Ī report from the AP lays out the details, but the information will come as no surprise to anyone who has tried to fully expunge their location data, or who read the “dark patterns” report from June.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |