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Privacy Alert: Google Now Allows Opt-Out For Location Data

Privacy conscious individuals have won another fight against Google’s fight to continually erode the boundaries of personal information privacy. In response to the European Union’s demands for the protection of individual privacy, Google announced today that users would be able to opt out of location-based services.

Currently, Google uses a variety of location-tracking tools in order to provide relevant information based on a user’s current GPS coordinates. For modern smartphone users, Google can use GPS satellites, cell tower triangulation, or Wi-Fi (by tracing the signal’s external IP) to pinpoint a user’s location. Opting out of location-based services ensures that Google is not able to track or store information about your mobile usage, a privacy concern for many individuals.

Why Europe?

The European Union has been leading the way in Internet privacy and data security for years now. Due to the Nazi use of personal information to persecute individuals during World War II, Europe strongly protects the personal nature of this identifying information and requires that governments and corporations respect an individual’s desire to opt out of tracking. The Data Protection Directive, focused on securing an individual’s right to privacy of their personal data, is the most restrictive personal information privacy legislation in the world. When Google decided to use location-based data without allowing users to opt out, Europeans were justifiably outraged.

This new policy will not affect most users, since most individuals will prefer the increased accessibility that location-targeted data provides. Various Android and iPhone mobile apps, websites, and services, including Google’s new acquisition Zagat, use location targeting to determine what is in your vicinity in order to offer recommendations that are relevant. By opting out of the location-based tracking data, users will limit the effectiveness of these applications. It’s likely that most users will work around the lack of location-based targeting the old fashioned way, by entering a zip code and navigating to their position manually.

Good Choice For Google?

The choice to opt out was not an easy one for Google, especially as they push to increase the influence of local mobile searching. Google strongly believes that returning relevant mobile results will secure its place as a search leader for years to come as mobile Internet use continues to grow. The opt-out will also negatively impact the overall viability of numerous recent acquisitions targeting local commercial search results, including three acquisitions, Zagat, Sparkbuy, and Dealmap, in 2011 alone.

According to a Google press release, an access point owner, or the person who is hosting the Wi-Fi connection, will also be able to automatically opt-out all users who connect to the Wi-Fi, but it is unclear whether or not this is an accurate description of the final mechanism.

The opt-out mechanism will not be in place until later this autumn, Google says, but it will be released globally, not just in the European Union. This is a step forward for privacy in the United States, which is lacking in legislative protections for individuals. The most recent comprehensive privacy legislation was passed in 1986, and like any computer from that era, it is terribly outdated.

The PATRIOT Act eroded many of the information privacies that individuals were assumed to have in order to stop terrorism. For this reason, it is up to private sector companies like Google to create mechanisms to protect personal information by instituting opt-out, do-not-track, and methods to permanently remove all personal information from their databases. So when European committees on data privacy offer the required nudge to convince Google and other corporations to reform their data collection initiatives, Americans owe them a thank you.

Written By

Posted by Greg Henderson, an Internet Marketer and SEO Associate for a cell phone lookup site FreePhoneTracer.com, and an find an email address site EmailFinder.com.

19 Comments

19 Comments

  1. joe

    September 16, 2011 at 2:05 pm

    okay.. I’m a little confused on what the last paragraph meant to say.. I thought the patriot act will make it easier for them to enforce the law? that’s why it’s called patriot act right? hhmm.. but I guess it will make personal data available for the terrorist too so that’s even more dangerous.. is that why we should thank the European committees?

    • Greg Henderson

      September 16, 2011 at 5:07 pm

      Hey Joe…The Patriot Act allows for the government to collect personal data without having to go through the formal legal proceedings. Much of this information can be collected without your knowledge. So it is up to our private sector to allow us to opt-out of these data collection programs. Then, our private information will stay private (if this what you prefer of course).

      • joe

        September 17, 2011 at 4:55 am

        Thanks for clearing things up a bit for me Greg.. I was also thinking of the fact that they could also get in to the personal information of terrorists and therefore can catch them easier, it’s a way of even faster investigation.. that’s why I got a little confused..

        • Greg Henderson

          September 20, 2011 at 12:37 am

          No problem Joe. Thanks for the comments. I wasn’t intending to get into politics or national security but you raised some very good points.

  2. Nawaz

    September 17, 2011 at 5:43 am

    it is very good to have a system that can be very helpful in tracking local data.This is very useful to get the information of your vicinity.

    • Greg Henderson

      September 20, 2011 at 12:39 am

      Hey Nawaz. Thanks for the comment. It can be very useful. But I think the issue was more in the lines of whether people should have the option to have their location tracked or not. If a person wishes to not be located, the option should be available to opt-out, as stated by the European Commission and many privacy groups.

  3. Jeff

    September 18, 2011 at 6:20 am

    The Patriot Act is ridiculous and pretty much goes against everything out country stands for – liberty, freedom, etc. The fact that the government can wire tap someone “because they might be a threat to national security” is bull crap. Having evidence is one thing – but using the Patriot Act to gather the evidence is where they are crossing the line.

    • Greg Henderson

      September 20, 2011 at 12:42 am

      Thanks for the comment Jeff. I love it when people express their opinions. I don’t know if I totally agree with you but I DEFINITELY respect you for voicing your thoughts!

  4. jorge

    September 19, 2011 at 7:03 am

    Well.. maybe in the midst of the worst case scenario can we see or appreciate anything like this.. But if they are allowing opt outs for users then that will be no problem.. 😀

    • Greg Henderson

      September 20, 2011 at 12:40 am

      Thanks Jorge. I totally agree with you. If you don’t mind, then you have a great service at your fingertips. If you don’t want to be tracked. you can rest assured with the opt-out policy.

  5. Samantha

    September 19, 2011 at 12:04 pm

    Google is always updated and I think I love your post here…Thanks for the information…

    • Greg Henderson

      September 20, 2011 at 12:43 am

      No problem Samantha. I was just trying to keep people aware. No doubt Google has great products!

  6. Kayla

    September 19, 2011 at 10:23 pm

    I applaud you google for always looking out for us.
    Love their products!

    -Kayla

    • Greg Henderson

      September 20, 2011 at 12:43 am

      Hey Kayla. Thanks for the comment. In this particular case, it was more of the European Union and European Commission looking out for us!

    • briant

      September 22, 2011 at 6:07 am

      Yup yup yup!.. if they are loving the customers then the customers will love them back.. :D..

      • Greg Henderson

        September 22, 2011 at 5:56 pm

        Braint….couldn’t say it any better myself!

  7. Lauren

    September 21, 2011 at 7:17 pm

    The location data of users could be very useful for google to serve people more and more depending on their location and as such google has helped many of us and made our lives more easy and comfortable. I just hope google comes out with some alternative solution.

    • Greg Henderson

      September 22, 2011 at 5:55 pm

      Thanks for the comment Lauren. Definitely. And this is only an OPTIONAL out. If you prefer the location-based services, you have no reason to disable it. This is just for those who prefer not to be located.

  8. Rita Dawson

    April 30, 2012 at 12:39 pm

    Thanks for sharing such nice post. The location data of users from Google is really going to be very useful indeed.

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