Ride the Lightning

Your Apps Know Where You Are – And They Are Spilling Your Secrets

December 13, 2018

One of the more striking stories I've read recently was a piece from The New York Times (sub.req.) entitled "Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They're Not Keeping It Secret." This article is not a short read – but it is an important one.

At least 75 companies receive anonymous, precise location data from users who enable location services to get local news, weather, traffic and other information. Several of those businesses claim to track up to 200 million mobile devices in the U.S. – about half of those in use last year.

The companies sell, use or analyze the data to sell to advertisers, retailers and even hedge funds seeking insight into consumer behavior. Sales of location-targeted advertising reached an estimated $21 billion this year. IBM has gotten into the business with its purchase of the Weather Channel's apps.

Naturally, they all say that they are interested in patterns of behavior, not the identities. I'm not so sure – and neither is one of my favorite legislators, Senator Ron Wyden, who has said "Location information can reveal some of the most intimate details of a person's life – whether you've visited a psychiatrist, whether you went to an AA meeting, who you might date . . . It's not right to have consumers kept in the dark about how their data is sold and shared and leave them unable to do anything about it."

Wyden has proposed bills to limit the collection and sale of such data, which are largely unregulated in the US.

Read the whole article – it is deeply disturbing in its implications. I hope Senator Wyden is able to convince his colleagues of the need for legislation – sooner rather than later.

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