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Google Businesses Communications Privacy

Google Demanded T-Mobile, Sprint To Not Sell Google Fi Customers' Location Data (vice.com) 58

An anonymous reader shares a report: On Thursday, AT&T announced it was stopping the sale of its customers' real-time location data to all third parties, in response to a Motherboard investigation showing how data from AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint trickled down through a complex network of companies until eventually landing the hands of bounty hunters and people unauthorized to handle it. To verify the existence of this trade, Motherboard paid $300 on the black market to successfully locate a phone.

Google, whose Google Fi program offers phone, text, and data services that use T-Mobile and Sprint network infrastructure in the United States, told Motherboard that it asked those companies to not share its customers' location data with third parties. "We have never sold Fi subscribers' location information," a Google spokesperson told Motherboard in a statement late on Thursday. "Google Fi is an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) and not a carrier, but as soon as we heard about this practice, we required our network partners to shut it down as soon as possible." Google did not say when it made this a requirement.

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Google Demanded T-Mobile, Sprint To Not Sell Google Fi Customers' Location Data

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    Their cut of the proceeds.

    • Or until they can rebuild their reputation.

      Google is like Microsoft 20 years ago. It is popular, however its reputation is getting further tainted, mostly due to aggressive business decisions that negatively affect its customers.

      This bad reputation is strongly the reason why Apple had such growth the past decade+. As demand for mobile devices increased, we no longer could make x86 compatible devices that were mobile. So the huge MS Software library would be unavailable. So people switch to Apple Devices

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Google is like Microsoft 20 years ago.

        lol ok

        brought to you by someone who understands neither Microsoft 20 years ago or Google now

        • lol ok

          brought to you by someone who understands neither Microsoft 20 years ago or Google now

          Another useless comment brought to you by an AC that doesn't understand basic punctuation.

      • Microsoft [...], where they are now working hard to regain trust with customers again.

        LOL what!?!?!? They force installed an OS that is both adware and spyware with no way to permanently disable either of those behaviors, and they won't even sell the little people the version that lets you only get advertised to and spied on a little. Windows 10 is by a wide margin the greatest violation of trust they've EVER pulled, and good god is there heavy competition.

  • I see the article (yeah I RTFA) Google says they demanded that they stopped but not when. Last night? Last year?
  • by bigpat ( 158134 ) on Friday January 11, 2019 @11:21AM (#57944346)

    Unfortunately it probably isn't illegal for companies to sell customer data like this... but it should be illegal to sell intimate customer data without explicit consent and ongoing updates about specifically which companies are being given access to the data and in turn which other companies are getting access to the data further down the line.

    Maybe I would be ok with specific reputable ad companies using this data for specific advertising services, but not so ok if anyone can pay $300 and track my location.

    • by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Friday January 11, 2019 @11:28AM (#57944406)

      Maybe I would be ok with specific reputable ad companies using this data for specific advertising services, but not so ok if anyone can pay $300 and track my location.

      Why should ad companies get special privileges? I'm not ok with them using this data without my consent and frankly I think the term "reputable ad company" is something of an oxymoron. I certainly do not trust ANY of them including Google and especially Facebook. At minimum there should be a firewall so that third parties have no means of learning specific details about the individual being tracked without explicit consent from that individual. It should absolutely be illegal to sell identifiable tracking data to third parties without explicit written (and revocable) consent.

      • by bigpat ( 158134 )

        Also... "maybe I would be okay with" clearly means I would be giving consent. I have a right to give my data to whomever I damn well please.

    • "The Data" is not 'your data', it's not 'customer data', it's 'their data'. At least, this is how it is in America, and has been since they first started collecting the data in 2001 (or before).
    • Unfortunately it probably isn't illegal for companies to sell customer data like this... but it should be illegal to sell intimate customer data without explicit consent

      It wouldn't make a difference......a very small percentage of the population even reads their cell phone contract, and most people don't care if their location data has been sold.

  • Business (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Friday January 11, 2019 @11:23AM (#57944360)

    Because if that data is available from carriers, Google won't be able to monetize it exclusively themselves. They don't want any competition.

    • by bigpat ( 158134 )

      Because if that data is available from carriers, Google won't be able to monetize it exclusively themselves. They don't want any competition.

      There is some truth to that, but so what? In this case Google preventing competition means preventing a free (gray) market in buying and selling your personal data.

      Society needs better privacy laws which mandate disclosure down to specific transactions and amounts when personal data about customers is shared with third parties without specific authorization or at least specific disclosure so people have a chance to end their business relationship with that company.

      Sure, that would give Google a competitive

  • by TuballoyThunder ( 534063 ) on Friday January 11, 2019 @11:36AM (#57944460)
    At first I thought I accidentally went to The Onion when I saw the headline, but it really is Slashdot.

    As other have pointed out, I guess Google doesn't like the competition.

  • by Aspasia13 ( 700702 ) on Friday January 11, 2019 @11:38AM (#57944484)
    ... that's our job!"
  • by Murdoch5 ( 1563847 ) on Friday January 11, 2019 @11:47AM (#57944560) Homepage
    They intentionally collected mass amounts of data, for the sole purpose of tracking and distributing that data to other companies. If they didn't want the data shared they would of either not collected it, or made the data functionally useless to the other parties, through encryption, hashing or other means of obfuscation.
    • They intentionally collected mass amounts of data, for the sole purpose of tracking and distributing that data to other companies. If they didn't want the data shared they would of either not collected it, or made the data functionally useless to the other parties, through encryption, hashing or other means of obfuscation.

      I'm confused... who is the "they" you're referring to? Google didn't collect the data, T-Mobile and Sprint did. Google asked them not to sell it.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Feel sorry for Google.

    They have the SADZ because others are being evil with their surreptitious data collection.

  • I find it disappointing that people expect "free" services like Gmail, YouTube and Google Search and somehow expect it to be free when in reality systems like that cost millions of dollars to run / maintain and upgrade. It's like getting free coffee but complaining that the paper cup has advertising on it. The trade-off is to have to pay for everything.

    • Are you really so naive as to be unaware that the objection is not to the display of advertising itself, but the invasive and deceitful ways they acquire data to target those ads, and the reselling of that data to third parties?
      I don't mind that GMail shows me ads, I mind that Google tracks me by GPS and logs every site I visit.
      I don't mind that Facebook shows me ads, I mind that they steal my private photos and contacts without permission. (There's lots of talk about the latter, but the former should b
      • Seeing the name "fafalone" just took me into a fucking time machine... Tell me you're not the dude from AOL/AIM private chat VB5...
    • I find it disappointing that people expect "free" services like Gmail, YouTube and Google Search and somehow expect it to be free when in reality systems like that cost millions of dollars to run / maintain and upgrade.

      You only find it "disappointing" because your understanding of the issue is incorrect and your information incomplete.
      This is absolutely not a fair exchange, where people choose to use Google's services and pay with their privacy. People aren't snooped on as a result of them using the free services - that would imply a choice, and with Google there is no choice. Google collects data on everybody, all the time, including people who don't use any of their services. Nobody can choose to not use GMail or whatev

  • I question whether, if this data is sold, if bounty hunters are people who "should not have it", but otherwise...

  • "We have never sold Fi subscribers' location information,"

    See how specific this sentence is? "We have never sold FI subscribers' location information". They didn't say they never sell customer information just not FI location information. If the subscriber has, say, a Google account as well and they are logged in to that account on their FI phone well that's an entirely different conversation.

  • gets to track it's users.
    Enjoy that free tracking with the free OS, browser, search engine.

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