Google Always Tracks You, Even with Location History Turned Off

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If you typed 1 + 1 into a calculator and hit the equals button, you’d be quite upset if it returned “3.” Likewise, you’d be upset if a barista refused to give you a coffee without almond milk in it. When you ask for something, and someone or something deliberately misbehaves, it can be very frustrating. It can even be deadly, if you’re allergic to almonds. That’s why Google users are furious with Google. It seems that, even if you tell Google you don’t want them storing your location, they’ll store it anyway, tracking your whereabouts at all times.

An AP news report proved that Google is indeed tracking their users, even with location history turned off. Google has admitted to the practice, but has not promised to make any changes. We’re stuck with it. Furthermore, thanks to machine learning, Google knows what you’re going to do as well.

How is Google Tracking its Users?

If you’ve thought about privacy before, you may have heard of Google’s Location History “feature.” Google polls your phone for its location every once in a while. The company then stores your location, allowing them to track you at all times. The feature is called Location History, and, yes, you can turn it off.

Why would you want to leave it on? The only possible use case would be turning it on when you’ve lost your phone, and back off once you’ve found it. There aren’t many uses for smartphone owners. Primarily, Google uses it to track your foot traffic and commute patterns. They can use this data to sell to advertisers, pointing out the best places to put advertisements in the real world, or to developers, looking at where they’d want to build new commercial or residential property. The information may be useless to you, but it’s useful for Google’s customers. You are not Google’s customer, your data is its product. Therefore, it’s on by default. You can go into your Google profile settings and turn it off though.

Or so we thought.

App Activity

Turning off Location History stops Google from polling your phone, that is, storing regular “check-ins” from your phone’s GPS. However, it doesn’t stop Google from using event-based tracking. Nearly every time you use a Google feature, from a search, to getting the weather, to opening the Google Maps app, you send your location information to Google. Google stores that location information. Turning off Location History doesn’t turn off this tracking, it just turns off the Location History tracking. Google told users it wouldn’t store their location information, but hasn’t been honest. Now every time you read a Google News story you’ll check in with Google, your digital nanny.

App activity doesn’t just store your location. Google’s app activity is how it keeps track of everything you do with Google. It’s how you can open your iPhone, search for something, and see it in your search history on your other devices moments later. Google also uses it to link your features together, tying their privacy-invading tracking to vital features of their apps and services.

Can Users Turn this Off?

You can turn off App Activity, just as you can “turn off” Location History. This does seem to block Google from tracking your every movement. Without access to Google’s servers, we can’t be sure. However, if you rely on Google services or Google devices, you’re not going to want to turn it off. Not only is it useful for tracking between services, like tying a Google search into your Maps app, but it’s also required for using Google Assistant.

I turned off App Activity. It was back on shortly thereafter. As I was heading to bed that night, I told my Google Home Mini to turn off my lights (my “Hey Google, Goodnight!” command). Google didn’t know about my Philips Hue light bulbs anymore. It couldn’t process home-related automation commands. It wasn’t able to complete most of my requests. Because Google uses App Activity to tie all of their services together, and because they added location tracking to using App Activity, you can’t escape. If you want Google to stop tracking you, you’re going to have to stop using many features of Google services.

Android Users

Those in Apple’s ecosystem could likely protect themselves completely. Stop using all Google services, and Google can’t directly track your location anymore. Those on Android will find this far more difficult. We don’t fully know how deep App Activity’s integration goes. However, with Google Play Services on every Android phone, and stock apps preinstalled and unable to be uninstalled without rooting, it’s likely impossible to ditch even just one Google service. Google offers Android OS for free to phone manufacturers as long as they include these apps on the device. They offer their apps and services for free to their users as well. Google sees Android as their data collection platform. On Android, it’s next to impossible to escape this privacy invasion by design.

Locations and Law Enforcement

Some of you may be rushing to change your browser search engine to DuckDuckGo, ditching Google Maps for Bing or Apple Maps, leaving Gmail behind, and shutting off all location tracking in your apps. The rest of you likely shrugged. Who cares if Google has your data, they have data on millions of people, what’s the real problem? Well, thanks to Google, there’s a chance you could be a murder suspect in the future, just for having suspicious location data.

Recently, the FBI made an unprecedented power grab. No, I’m not talking about when they tried to force Apple to write software no one wanted to make. In Maine, a string of robberies had the FBI scratching their heads. They made a request to Google for all the people where were in the area of the robberies during a spacious time frame. The result would have been a gigantic data dump, and a massive privacy violation for everyone who happened to walk by this area.

This would have literally been “Big Brother,” the government having tabs on individuals. It also would have constituted a violation of the 4th amendment. Citizens are protected against unwarranted searches. Having their location data combed through by the FBI without probable cause would have been a violation of this right.

Fortunately, Google ignored the FBI request, and the FBI was able to solve the case using a shocking tool: detective skills.

Google Stalkers

Law enforcement concerns not worrying enough? Well, Google isn’t just a nameless, faceless company. It has thousands of employees. They are (mostly) normal, fallible, insecure, (mostly) humans. They have access to that location data. Google’s (overwhelmingly male) employees have been in the press for harassing female coworkers, and sexist manifestos. Google has also caught some of their employees using this location data to stalk victims before. The employees were fired, neither Google nor law enforcement allow this, however, many, if not most, cyber crimes go without punishment. These employees did everything from reading emails to blackmailing people with naked photos. One of them was stalking minors. Peeping in on people’s private lives at Google wouldn’t be difficult, and has been abused before. You’re only safe because no one has tried to look for your data, photos, or locations directly (that you know of).

Google v. The World?

Google’s Response

“There are a number of different ways that Google may use location to improve people’s experience, including: Location History, Web and App Activity, and through device-level Location Services. We provide clear descriptions of these tools, and robust controls so people can turn them on or off, and delete their histories at any time.”

– Google spokesperson speaking with AP News

Google has been anything but clear. App Activity has been updated to include information on Google’s location tracking after AP News took them to task, but prior to that, Google did not explain that they were still tracking locations while history was turned off. They made it seem as though turning off Location History would put a stop to their tracking. This hasn’t been the case.

Google has been dodging questions from news organizations as well. Engadget tried to get more information on the tracking. A Google spokesperson responded with a form letter response, “We’ve built powerful data controls — including on-device settings, Web and App activity, and within Location History — that users can turn on or off at any time.” They didn’t address Engadget’s questions, or the fact that turning off any form of location tracking turns off other, unrelated features that are vital for app functionality. Google’s waiting for this to blow over. Thanks to the popularity of Google’s services and their near monopoly on search, maps, and non-Apple smartphone operating systems, Google’s likely right. This is going to blow over.

Legal Response

However, some people aren’t happy with letting Google off the hook. Google falsely claimed that turning off location tracking would prevent the company from storing your location data. By lying about the functionality of this setting, Google broke a 2011 agreement with the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), as well as the California Invasion of Privacy Act.

Google’s initial Location History setting description:

“You can turn off Location History at any time. With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.”

After AP News revealed that this was a lie:

“You can turn off Location History at the account level at any time.

This setting does not affect other location services on your device, like Google Location Services and Find My Device. Some location data may be saved as part of your activity on other services, like Search and Maps. When you turn off Location History for your Google Account, it’s off for all devices associated with that Google Account.”

Google got caught in an obvious lie. While this should give consumers reason to distrust Google, it’s also a violation of a federal agreement with EPIC and California state law. Google’s 2011 agreement with EPIC stated that the company could not misrepresent the data they collect or the ability of consumers to prevent this collection. By falsely claiming that users could turn off location tracking, Google broke this settlement. EPIC has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Attorneys in California representing a lone California man are seeking a class action lawsuit against Google. The suit would argue that, by collecting this location information and not allowing users to prevent it, Google collected citizens’ information without their permission, a violation of California’s constitutional right to privacy. California is the home state of Google.

What Now?

I recommend using Google services as little as possible. Replace your search engine with one that doesn’t track users, like DuckDuckGo. If you find it’s not robust enough, you can try out Microsoft’s Bing. Android users, however, are out of luck. It’s unlikely they’ll want to switch to iOS. However, Apple does not see their users as customers. If you’re interested in privacy, you should get an iOS device. Switch if you can.

If you’re a California citizen, you’ll likely be able to join a class-action lawsuit against Google. For the rest of us, we can only hope that Google stops this behavior thanks to EPIC’s complaint to the FTC. It’s unlikely we’ll get anything else.

Google stole your personal location, mapped out where you are at all times and fed it through machine learning algorithms to find patterns. Even if Google stops collecting your location data, they have models trained on you that will allow them to pinpoint your approximate location at any time with great accuracy for many years to come. Google lied to its users, it betrayed our privacy and our trust. Can we ever trust Google again?

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Sources:

• Eric Allday, SFGate
• Violet Blue, Engadget
• Cyrus Farivar, ArsTechnica
• Thomas Fox-Brewster, Forbes
• Andrew O’Hara, AppleInsider
• Ryan Nakashima, AP News [1], [2]
• Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land