Posted on 01/24/2022 3:25:57 PM PST by devane617
The Washington State Attorney General is filing a lawsuit Monday against Google, claiming it secretly tracks consumer locations.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s lawsuit is set to file at King County Superior Court and says Google continues to track consumers even after they turn off location tracking settings.
"If you go to the trouble on your phone, and actually disable location tracking, you think, well, they're not going to track you anymore," Ferguson said in an interview with KOMO News. "Well, guess what? Google has a back-end way to still track you. Even when you affirmatively check the box saying I don't want you tracking me."
This data is used for Google to profit from, according to Ferguson who said they want Google to disable this back-end way.
"And by the way, there's a reason why Google makes it hard for you to do this, because they profit off it to the tune of billions of dollars, all that advertising about where you're going, they make billions and billions of dollars off that," Ferguson claimed. "So it's good for their bottom line but bad for consumers' privacy.
"So we're going to court because they won't do it voluntarily. We have to go to a judge to get the judge to order them to stop."
Will NEVER have a cell phone & LOVE MY LAND LINE.
I’m surprised Ferguson is doing this. I thought he’d be a champion of the surveillance state.
Guess who the FBI calls to help locate somebody?
Wait, do they know my exact location in Moldova? Or is it Serbia right now. Can’t remember.
If your phone is ON it is locatable through triangulation.
Not only Google, but the cell phone companies, AT&T, Verizon etc has that data. In fact that data was used to find ballot stuffers in the Atlanta area. No names but Meta data showed several of them.
“If your phone is ON it is locatable through triangulation.”
I think that even happens when you “think” it is off.
Yep, the carriers have it real time all the time.
Yeah. Who could have guessed?
I do have a cell phone and take the battery out to fix it, as well as often leave it sitting inside the house. That’s how it goes. I know many people are obsessed with their electronic devices, sadly enough.
If I’m hiding, fleeing, protesting (in disguise) or at a PTA meeting discussing the defective curriculum of our public schools, I’ll leave it at home.
Your phone stops transmitting when there is no battery in it. Older phones made it easy to unsnap the back of the phone off and take the battery out. Newer phones require a small screwdriver to unscrew the phone open to get the battery out. Either way, you don’t need your phone with you all the time, if that’s your decision. I don’t have mine on my person all the time. I often leave it sitting inside my house or inside my car. I don’t see the need to always have it on me.
and all this time I thought STALKING was a FELONY worthy of Arrest, Prosecution and PRISON
It doesn’t have to be on, as long as the battery is in it, they can Track You
It’s perfectly safe to have a cell phone.
Get a Linux phone. Avoid all Androids and do not get an iPhone. Google is worse, but iPhones siphon data as well.
Only mad because it wasn’t his idea.
On Android see “Settings->Connections->More connection settings->Nearby device scanning”. This is some Bluetooth based feature. The claim is that it constantly looks for Bluetooth devices you may want to connect to. It could also be used for other reasons. Each Bluetooth device has a unique ID. If somebody else’s phone see’s your Bluetooth device there’s nothing to stop Google from sending this somewhere. Maybe you have GPS turned off but your Bluetooth is on. Somebody else’s phone could report your approximate location.
I could see this being used for contact tracing. Turning this off may help your battery but for those that don’t like stealth monitoring you may want to turn it off anyway.
Damn.
That is simple and irrefutable.
Actually now that I think about it most users have already have already agreed voluntarily since somewhere in your little square checkbox past.
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