Now Google transmits user locations

How wide does this go? Now Google devices 'found to transmit user locations back to the company'

 

I would bet that most if not all such devices engage in some form of this behavior. I'd also bet that its because of government pressure/coercion under the guise of national security.

 

Might think of reconsidering Android, but it's still the best in my eyes.

 

When Privacy is sacrificed in the name of National Security...

 

http://phandroid.com/2011/04/22/goo...our-location-but-not-without-your-permission/

For what its worth. I have a Droid X and I'm not too concerned.

 

I'm not greatly concerned at this point either. Are they gonna watch me go from home to work and back? It's all pretty boring.

 

on my android device I"ve noticed Google maps location services cant be turned off. Well you can turn FORCE turn off, but immediatly it starts again. It's constantly updating my position.

This is even when not using google maps, google earth, whatever else. It's makes me feel uneasy that google knows exactly where I am every minute of the day. When I stop applications being able to use GPS, google maps location service then finds out where you are by network positioning.

Creepy google. Also uses 3-5% of my battery 24 hours a day.

 

It's one of the reasons I don't use a smartphone (the other being that it's not something I can't live without).

 

Surfing the net on a mobile device means your surfing with a unremoveable tracking cookie. Thats its IMEI

 

aaaaaaaand

im ok with this

 

Calm down D00ds, it's not like we are bad guys
Stop using it or find a better alternative

 

Already using a better Alternative. That attitude is the reason why people don't trust ya

 

Thats not the point mate,YOUR PRIVACY SHOULDNT BE VIOLATED FOR NO REASON!!

 

This is why I only use prepaid phones with no bells & whistles. No web, data, GPS, nothing. No information (name, CC#) given away. I have my phone for 2 purposes... to send, and receive phone calls. I know that seems stone-aged to many people these days with all that phones are capable of. I have a Samsung a107. It cost me $10. It doesn't even have a camera on it. It doesn't get any more basic than that.

I like spending my time on the PC when I'm at home, but when I'm out the last thing I want to do is be tethered to technology. I'm either outdoors taking in the beauty of nature, or working and too busy. That's just my prerogative. I'm not passing judgment on anyone else's lifestyle, to be clear here.

And when I am taking in the beauty of nature I don't want "the man" knowing where I'm at just because I choose to make a phone call. I've been told many times that I'm "paranoid", but every time I see articles like this it justifies that paranoia.

Or in the immortal words of Prince Humperdink: "I always think everything could be a trap... which is why I'm still alive".

 

Use this search engine
https://ixquick.com/do/mypage.pl?prf=d570cc2071c9726d7af7495f13172c2c

 

Or this one

https://ssl.scroogle.org

 

Why not just turn GPS and Location off in settings? This disables it completely. Also a Custom Rom may help out too.

 

Yep, I've been using Ixquick for over a year now, and I've never looked back. It wasn't until a couple weeks ago though that I learned how to make it work for your URL bar, instead of Google in Firefox... thanks to the help from a very kind Wilders member I cannot remember. For awhile I removed the URL bar altogether just to ensure myself of avoiding Google. No more.

I owe that person a beer.

 

I'm not sure I'd stake my life on that. Simply by making a phone call you're sending out a signal, so I'd imagine that signal could be traced if need be, even if you have no GPS, web, or anything on your phone. But with prepaid at least they wouldn't know whose signal it was because you gave away no info. to activate the phone. But then again there may be some voice recognition technology out and about?...

Of course, I also think they could be looking through your camera lens at you, so don't listen to me, I'm your basic tin foil hat wearing paranoid schizophrenic. That's why I'm glad that my phone also has no camera

But like they say, just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean the world ISN'T out to get me!

 

In Firefox its called Geo Location

Type about:config in address bar
type geo.enabled, set to false. Done!

Want more?
type safebrowsing, you'll find 6 key related, set all to false. Done!

More?
disable search suggestion.

More?
change your search plugins to Ixquick or Scroogle, find it on mycroft.mozdev.org/search-engines.html?category=66

And many more. Good Luck.

 

LOL. I agree. But any one using a cell phone probably knows it CAN be tracked. It doesn't mater if it is a smart phone or feature phone. In order for the phone to work it HAS to send back location data. That way it knows where the towers are and when to switch from one tower to the next. If they didn't do this you would lose calls all of the time. and not to mention never be able to receive calls.

IMHO it is worth it to me to have a cell phone. If I am doing something I don't want tracked I leave my phone at home or turn it off and pull the battery.

 

I actually have an old school friend who like you is mentally ill with Paranoid Schizophrenia. Anyway he stopped taking his anti psychotic medication, so his father took him up to the mental hospital 3 weeks ago. When they got there he ran & nobody knew where he was.

Police were able to track him down to a specific part of a forest where he had been hiding & detain him 2 days later due to his phone. I don't know the details of how this was done, like via phone tower triangulation or if he used google maps or some other technique was used to maybe turn on the GPS. He has is a nokia e71 smartphone, not an android or iphone device.

I'd be interested to know if he actually used his phone at all & was still tracable via just having the phone on or if he did use the phone, did he just access the internet, did he use google maps. Another possibility was that maybe they used his past phone use info to find him. Maybe the spot where he was captured was where he'd often go anyway.

He's locked up in a psych ward now, so possibly won't be able to ask him for quite a while.

 

Mozilla states that websites need to ask for your permission.

And disable good security in place of a bit more privacy? No thanks.

Minimal, if any, change in privacy for somewhat less convenience. Nah.

The rest I'm not really interested in.

 

I'm still using Firefox 3.6.18. When I type in "safebrowsing" a bunch of entries come back. Only 2 are set to true (.enabled) and (.malware.enabled).

I'm curious JL... could you elaborate on why you think his tweaks are counter-productive, and which ones? What would be the pro's & con's of the geo.enabled toggle?

And to Jesus... I'm not really a schizophrenic, I just play one in security forums. I'll bet that incident only served to convince your friend even more that the world was out to get him though. Pretty unsettling.

 

Google spies and has already paid fines because of that:
* Google stores your searches for many years..
* Google makes photos of your street and houses without asking for it.
* Google has collected wifi private data:
'Google collected private information from Wi-Fi networks, including emails, fragments of visited websites and passwords.'
http://www.techspot.com/news/44810-googles-street-view-cars-collect-locations-of-wi-fi-devices.html
and see this:
http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20070742-281/exclusive-googles-web-mapping-can-track-your-phone
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20082777-281/street-view-cars-grabbed-locations-of-phones-pcs

And now Google wants you to store your mail (Gmail) and documents (Google Docs) and pictures (Picasa web albums) and movies (YouTube) and Social Network with them (Google+) Phone (Android) Web browse (Chrome) etc. etc.

So yes if you are interrested in antispyware, why not drop Google products?

Further more i think that it is not good, that one company has this percentage of the search engine market share ,they own many other search engines.

So since Google is spying i have banned all their products and blocked their ip ranges, i don't like a Big Brother watching over my shoulder.

Recent hacking at CIA,FBI,City bank,Nato , US militairy, etc has proven that your data collected by others can fall in the wrong hands.

And just like it is said before, i also have nothing to hide, but i also don't like it when a stranger is watching my house with his nose against my window whole day.
These privacy violations are a danger for what was formaly known as 'The free West'