Why should I give a fuck as to whether or not Google knows my location?

I fail to understand why people treat it as such a big deal, so please shed some light onto your side of the story if you do care.

It's always awkward when people claim they don't really care about privacy - from an account with no link to the real name and not even the city.

@Fast-Nop you're trying too hard to be edgy.

The two things you're comparing aren't exactly related bud

You give permission to Google to track your location. Google sells that data to, let's say, your health insurance company. Your health insurance company drops your coverage because you go to cinnabon 7 times a week. Maybe you're buying cinnamon rolls. Maybe you are part owner of the franchise and like to check up on things once a day. Regardless, do you want to have to fight the insurance company's decision when it's really none of their business? What if your location were used as badly in a child custody case? Your data may be innocuous, but it can be abused in so many ways. It's a slippery slope we are better off not standing on.

I think the problem isn't that Google knows your specific location and personal info at any given time, but rather that it knows all locations of all people all the time.

Big Data is the strongest weapon the industry currently has. I understand the point of view "ugh whatever, they know literally everything about me, so what?", but essentially they're violating one your essential human rights.

So you shouldn't be so dismissive about it, because it actually is a big deal.

You clearly don’t understand how valuable your data is. These companies don't care about ypu even if they seem to. They care just about money and trust me, your location data is making them a lot of money.

Also, you can't know what are their intentions and how will they use anything. You/we have absolutely no idea how this kind of data can be possibly used, so it is a good thing to care. Their options are literally unlimited when it comes to data. Not even government can stop them. These mega corporations are too big to be actually regulated or closed down if something happens.

OK just an example from history. Being intelligent implies learning from historic fuckups, right?

When Jews immigrated into the Netherlands in say 1910, there was a field for the religion in the form. Of course, Jewish immigrants had nothing to hide, so why not register the religion, eh?

Well three decades later, a fucking totally different country with a batshit crazy government that had been unthinkable in 1910 invaded the Netherlands, and the available data were the ticket into the Nazi gas chambers even for the child generation.

Denmark, by contrast, did not have such a field in the immigration forms. Guess why much fewer Danish Jews were gassed than Dutch ones.

Increasingly, law enforcement agencies serve political interests. They can subpoena your data(in the US), and Google and other companies like it, not wishing to be seen as a roadblock, will turn it over long before you even know it's been requested, regardless of the merit of the request.

It's honestly up to personal preference. I myself don't care enough because what are they gonna do w that information? Some people are overprotective of their data though

🤔ok, let's take a step back for a second.

The data isn't a matter of where you are, it's a matter of when and where and what you were doing at the time, now a Corp like Google isn't going to drill down to a single user and identify you're habits, you're locations you frequent and how often per week you go to KFC... oh wait it already does.

What it can do though is sell
you're data... well it's data on you now... to who ever wants it, and they can then drill down and create a profile of you're habits, oh look suddenly health products cost more, insurance premium goes up because you went to KFC 3 times this week and if you uSed Android pay they can cross reference to verify this, or hell if that data ever gets breached, "I" some random fucking person on the internet now knows you're life inside and out, when you're home, when you're at work, where these places are, where you're kids go to school, when you frequent to pick them up/ drop them off. Does this paint a picture for you yet?

If not, think what I could did with that data to now fuck you're life over. You got it yet?

Ps: I'm not a privacy nut, I just understand the risks of such data and why it has its benefits and it's associated problems.

To continue:

Since that's only on a single tier (1 business bought your data) what's to say they can't then sell it on to more business'?

You're personal data is now public knowledge, all because you "have nothing to hide"

Now to sum up, if you benefit from such companies tracking you're every move, then fuck it - you do you and continue. Just do t cry when you're life insurance is voided because you bought a packet of cigarettes.

@M1sf3t it's cheaper for me to use public healthcare then have private health insurance 🤫

Plus theres the issue of the health insurance company not covering the costs of medical procedures it deems "unnecessary*" or I forgot an optional cover package, So on top of the premiums, you're still forking out 🤷‍♂️

* they have to make a profit somehow right?

Why should Batman care if Joker or Penguin knows who is he behind the mask???

The problem is not only your location data. Your location data in combination with all other data that Google/FB/... collects centrally linked with those of other users is the bigger problem.

States, insurance companies etc. have a high interest in such a collection.

There are enough states that would discriminate against or harm parts of the population on the basis of such a collection.

Since by chance even "innocents" can quickly fall into the grid in such correlations, the topic is important for everyone.

@BlackOrange Because they can reach him or his loved ones while he has his guard dropped off?

"Hi ssync,

By agreeing to drink this water from this water bottle you are agreeing to give us metadata information about your life organs, such as how well your liver is performing, how much junk food you eat, and other invasive shit.

Have a nice drink!"

Other poeple have pointed out great issues, but this one deserves to ne brought up: whats the issue here? It's not a lack of alternatives, that's true. The issue here is that the clause has no opt-out option. If i were able to say:

"No sir I'd just like to pay for this bottle of water without the data tracking"

Then we'd be all fine and dandy. People would then be able to properly consent to their data being sold. As such, Google is making way more money from the NSA, advertising agencies, and private corporations than it would ever make by making a pay-to-play model.

I guarantee if there was a button to say "Nah dont track my every move" every single person would press it, but there's not, and therein lies the problem.

I was going to say approximately what everyone here has already said but I'd like to add something:

As we know (thanks, snowden), Google is directly integrates within at least one NSA powered mass surveillance engine/network meaning that they get all data from all google users.

If the US (or any of the five eyes countries) decides to use that data in court one day, it can't be tried since it comes from mass surveillance practices, thus undermining the justice system and, if you ask me, our democracy.

I appreciate everybody putting this into perspective for me. Thank you all for taking your time to put in your answers. I never took the time to stop and think about it, really.

I've been aware of all of these things I just never considered them situationally.

I understand some people care about privacy more than others. I personally don't care all that much. Although all of the responses I got definetly made me a little more aware.

I also agree that there should be an agreement side to it, @arcsector, if we don't want our data to be harvested and sold we should have the option to pay for it (the service/website) instead.