The aftermath of last week’s discovery of the potentially misleading claims that Google makes about how and when location information is sent back has continued billowing out. Today it’s been learned that a lawsuit has been filed against Google in response.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably seen some headlines this week talking about how Google is tracking users even when they have Location History turned off. In all reality, that’s been going on for quite some time, but the way Google explained everything made it seem like users were turning off that tracking completely. Now, Google has updated the language to make things a bit more clear…
Digiday reports that Google has implemented the tracking system it described last month, allowing it to see whether people seeing ads for local stores do in fact visit them.
If someone conducts a Google mobile search for “screwdrivers,” for instance, a local hardware store could bid to have its store listing served to that user. By pairing that person’s location data with its database of store listings, Google can see if the person who saw that ad subsequently visited the store.
Google can do this by default on Android devices – it’s one of the things you agree to in the small-print when you switch on location services – and on iOS devices when people use Google apps.
It’s effectively the real-world equivalent of cookies. When you’re exposed to an ad for the Acme Hardware Store, a cookie will often be placed on your PC. When you visit the Acme website, it can read that cookie and see that the ad worked. This does the same thing for visits to physical stores.
Via Engadget
It didn’t take long for the iPhone location tracking issue to escalate and get blown out of proportion. The story spread like a wildfire as we learned that both Google and Apple were summoned for the May 10 Congressional hearing. That was just a warm up, though. Reuters reports that South Korea police is after the search giant, having raided their Seoul office on Tuesday.
The reason? AdMob, Google’s mobile advertising arm, was illegally collecting location data from Android users without their consent. That’s the official line the country’s authorities provided to Reuters.
The probe into suspected collection of data on where a user is located without consent highlights growing concerns about possible misuse of private information as the use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets increases.
We suspect AdMob collected personal location information without consent or approval from the Korean Communication Commission.
A Google spokesperson confirmed the raid and said the company was co-operating with investigators. This latest development follows-up on the news that the governments of South Korea, France, Germany and Italy are considering probing Apple over the location data gathering fiasco.
