I recently bought a new GPS device for my kids’ car. Garmin has a deal with Foursquare so that when you do a search, some of the results are categorized as Foursquare results. I got the impression that the Foursquare app for my phone would integrate to the GPS giving me some sort of enhanced features.
I went to dinner a couple of nights ago and afterwards got an email from Foursquare asking me to rate the restaurant. I didn’t do a search on Foursquare or anywhere else to find the restaurant. I just went. The only way it could have known I went was to monitor my location against its list of businesses.
So Foursquare is an always-on app that stalks me. It’s getting uninstalled today.
I don’t know about Foursquare specifically, but don’t these always-on apps warn you when you’re installing them that they need access to background location services, and, additionally, mentions that they’re running even if the app isn’t? I use MileIQ, a mileage service, and it definitely asked me for both (and I approved, because that’s the whole point of that app for me). Other apps I’ve installed (can’t remember which specifically) have asked me, and I just denied.
I would assume, yes, depending on the app. For something like MileIQ, all my vehicle rides are logged so my wife could look through my account for the last year and see every last place I’ve been and what route I’ve taken while my phone was on and I was in a vehicle.
Sometimes, I will get a call from a person who is NOT my friend on Facebook. A few minutes after I hang up with said person, I will get an alert from Facebook on my phone asking if I know said person!
Not sure I like Facebook monitoring my phone calls!
That’s for MileIQ, whose whole point is to log your trips. It’s not creepy at all, as that is why I use it. The OP’s situation is slight;y creepy, but I’ve always had apps inform me on the iPhone whether they’re going to use background tracking. I’m not sure its possible to enable without prompting the user. I dont know how it is on other phones, though.
Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will recognize this as essentially Zola’s algorithm to be used to track everyone, predict their behavior, and assess whether they would be a future threat. Frankly, it isn’t going to matter soon whether you disable “Location Services” on your phone or not; if you show up on someone else’s Facebook page, or buy something with Apple Pay, or just get your face imaged by a publically accessible camera somehwere, the global hivemind overlord strategic thread guardian is going to know where you are at, what you are doing, and what you’re going to have for dinner.
What’s creepy is the package that includes such apps that come with turned-on default. You shouldn’t have to know how to turn them off, you should have to know how to turn them on.
I just downloaded it and installed it to my iPhone, and the very first thing it does when I launch it is generate a pop-up that says “Allow 'Foursquare” to access your location even when you are not using the app? Don’t Allow/Allow." Like I said, I don’t know how it is on other phones, but within the iPhone’s API, as far as I know, you need the user to explicitly allow your app access to location services, microphone, camera, film roll, etc. I would think other phones have similar levels of security.
The critical thing is yes they ask. But they ask a mostly meaningless question.
If the question was actually “Do you want us to monitor your every move, track your purchases, hound you to rate stuff so we can make more money, and sell your ever-more complete life’s dossier to the highest evil bidder for whatever purposes of social control or increased sales he may have?” most people would choose “No!!!1!!!111!!!”
Somehow the question “Allow 'Foursquare” to access your location even when you are not using the app?" doesn’t seem nearly as intimidating. So they choose “Allow.” But the outcome is the same.
Bottom line: We have technical disclosure. What we lack is truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth in disclosure.
To me, it seems an odd thing not to notice. With MileIQ, of course I expected that, and clicked “Allow.” With other apps where I’ve seen this, it seemed to me to be a huge red flag and I just clicked “don’t allow.” Why would I allow an app that is not supposed to be a tracking app access to my location when I’m NOT using it? Temporary access to location services, like when I’m actually using the app and looking for nearby restaurants makes sense. But when I’m not using it? I mean, I guess people must just reflexively click “allow” without reading the pop-up, but this isn’t like going through pages and pages of an EULA; this is a straightforward request that should at least ping your attention for what it’s asking for.
I’m like you. I think about what the messages really say. And whether my use cases for that app really need whatever opt-in/out functions are offered. And the more excess privs it wants, the more I’m suspecting it’s just trojanhorse-ware for something adverse to my interests even if I don’t know exactly what.
Most folks aren’t like that. They make the assumption the app store is looking out for their interests and all apps are safe. And that safe = benign in all ways. So the read the question as saying “Do you want ‘Foursquare’ to work right, or to fail with incomprehensible error messages? Allow/disallow working right?”
Yes, you have to out some minimal amount of effort into understanding how the technology you are using works. If the iPhone or any other consumer device had to explain this in explicit detail every single time you load a new app or change settings, it would cripple the device to unusability and frustrate even slightly sophisticated users. This is like expecting instructions to be printed on a box of toothpicks.
Bottom line is that I didn’t scrutinize the permissions when I installed it (shame on me). I see very little benefit to this app if I allow location services, and even less if I don’t. I uninstalled it.
And people wonder why I don’t have a smart phone, Smart- anything and drive an ancient vehicle whose highest thought process is “intake air sensor dead”.
IIRC, the first gen civilian GPS units were good for 15 or 25 FEET.
When my phone knows the name of the place I just ate, the tech has GOT to go.
I seem to recall hearing a high-level functional description of FourSquare - and did not like what I heard.
It is incredibly cool that a new emergency location beacon can give position to within 5’.
Not so cool that my every move is now tracked to within that same 5’.
You might want to keep that app - it does not, after all, create data - it just uses the available data and puts names to it.
Your phone was already saying “arrive Lat X Long Y at 16:21:37” “16:26:37 still here”, etc.
All Foursquare did was look up that location and tell you that your phone/GPS ratted you out.
The device already ratted you out; Foursquare simply told you about it.
Not exactly. Though you can see my sentiments in my earlier post.
Your phone ratted your location to your mobile Telco who log but otherwise ignore the data other than for the technological requirements to operate the mobile data infrastructure. The police *can *gain access to logged data with enough cause. It is *not *routinely sent en masse about everybody to the cops.
What foursquare and other similar apps add to the mix is they rat all the info all the time about all users directly to advertisers and commercial data miners.
I think you’ll agree that although lat/long plus a timestamp is data is data is data, there’s a huge difference in the consequences of the three levels of access: Telco, police, and random marketers.
My gf knows a couple who use Waze for driving (as do we).
One day he had to “work late” so she went out to grab some dinner. While driving, Waze shared his location with her, since they are “friends” on Waze. He had used Waze to drive to a motel.
My browser plugins have three options. Always activate, Never activate, or Ask to activate. I like the option of being able to choose, on a case by case basis, whether to activate the feature. “Do you want us to access your location now?”