Google/Apple/Microsoft handling of customer's geo-location data. Thoughts?

[Drew_Fl]

Microsoft

Apple's Q/A about the topic

Google's street view cars store locations and specific addresses of household devices

Both Google and Microsoft have this data available online in databases, but Google has largely tightened the access restrictions. However, as CNET reports, Microsoft has not.

I understand that all 3 companies track wifi hotspot data to improve network efficiency, but all 3 have made mistakes in handling private data.

Google has been the worst offender, claiming ignorance when it was discovered their street view cars were collecting specific information about my home network and yours as they pass by taking pictures of our streets.

The cars were supposed to collect the locations of Wi-Fi access points. But Google also recorded the street addresses and unique identifiers of computers and other devices using those wireless networks and then made the data publicly available through Google.com until a few weeks ago.

[Larry]

I blame Congress. (Bet y'all are shocked, huh?)

Must have been 10-15 years ago, Congress was deciding what the rules would be, for consumer's privacy.

As with most things in Washington, Congress heard from two kooks from the ACLU, who are always complaining about everything, anyway. And from dozens of lobbyists from the privacy invasion industry.

And Congress decided tha what this country needed was a federal law declaring that any business is allowed to collect any information about you that they can get their hands on, using any methods that they want. And that once they got that data, then they could do anything whatever that they wanted to do with it.

And that all these companies were required to do, was to somewhere, have a policy, that you were allowed to see if you requested it, saying that they could do it. (And these policies, written by lawyers hired by the company that wants to invade your privacy, are deliberately written so that the company can do anything they want.)

And your only option, if you don't consent to this invasion, is to hide yourself in an underground bunker, and to have no interaction with society whatsoever.

----------

Not that it's a touchy subject with me, or anything.