![]() I wouldn't expect those rates to be substantially different they're both US companies subject to US law. For comparison, Google's compliance rate is about the same, at 84% ( ). Apple's privacy policy confirms that they collect "Precise location only to support Find My, and coarse location." Apple complies with law-enforcement subpoena requests about 90% of the time in the US ( ). Therefore, Apple has access to a pipeline providing real-time location data of your whereabouts, if you use that feature. It completely changes the relationship it's users have with the company.įind My Friends exists. In my opinion, that's why the reporting earlier this year about Apple's pivot towards advertising is such a big deal. If they can't tie data they're collecting to more revenue, there's not as much incentive for them to collect that data. And "advertisers" isn't a well-defined demographic.Īpple's cost-benefit analysis when it comes to collecting user data is much ore clear-cut. The existence of that third party in Google's motive (i.e., advertisers) incentivizes Google to collect data more aggressively, because as long as the people using Google are "happy enough" to not leave the platform, Google stands to benefit from collecting more data for advertisers. When Apple collects data on you, it's mainly so that Apple can interact with you, and get you to pay Apple so that Apple makes money. When Google collects data on you, it's mainly so they can let other companies interact with you (ads), and those companies pay Google so that Google makes money. I think the important distinction is in the business reasons that Apple and Google collect data. I assume our locations are being provided based on the MAC of the nearest router(s), but it's not clear why those router MACs get associated with such far-flung and uncorrelated places.Īpple does this, but to a lesser extent. Currently we are showing up as being in the middle of a lake outside a town of 30000 people, though the FCC believes that area is only served by satellite internet providers. The location will change maybe every few months. Whether or not we're connected (or have ever been connected) to the company network, people in my office will find that our detected location is maybe 200 mi away from our office, often in places that have none of the same ISPs as our headquarters and are nowhere near any of our facilities. Few employees have company-issued phones connected to the network. ![]() I work at a satellite office about a mile from the main headquarters, but we have facilities (mostly small storefronts) over about a 1000mi radius from that location. My workplace has extremely bad cell coverage and no GPS coverage indoors. On laptops and desktops with no GPS, browsers will use this access point data to set a location - IP addresses databases are not up to date enough and sometimes they are linked to the ISP office address and not to specific towns and cities and certainly not to a specific address. While a fix is not available phone GPS uses any visible MAC address to determine its coarse location. A GPS get a fix faster if you are using it close to where it was last used, or how fresh the stored almanac data is, otherwise it may not find expected satellites in certain locations in the sky. Actual GPS takes a few moments to get a fix, even more if indoors. This information is also used for a GPS cold start. If you live in a location with low traffic/human density then it may take longer for Google to change it back. It may not link that data to your account, but it uses it to help getting a GPS location. In your case, if you used your phone via the VPN for more than a few hours, Google associates that MAC address with the finer location from your phone's GPS. Google logs your current location and the MAC address of any access point visible to your phone. It took a couple of weeks for Google services to catch up. For a few weeks his computer and other devices reported his location as being my city instead of his. Many years ago, I gave a friend in another city a router. Not you IP address but your router/access point's MAC address and been doing it for many years.įor example, I receive quite a few devices for reviews, and I mostly give things away after using those.
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