If lots of people do this, how long before marketing billboards appear at landfills? ?
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Tile Buyer Life360 Selling Precise Location Data on Millions of Users [Updated]
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No, it’s not spying if it’s not done secretly. It’s called sharing when known.
Find My is the same exact type of service as Life360. Nobody goes into it with the expectation that their information will be sold. Nobody deserves anything like that.
Even Apple was caught listening in on private Siri conversations. Who the heck knows what else they’re doing?
You can't expect everyone to be savvy enough to understand how the economics of these services work nor how it treats your data. From the consumer's perspective this and the people finding features in FindMy are equivalent, both being "free" apps that can be installed on their iPhones. How can you blame them if they happened to prefer the features of this app and didn't know about how their data is used? Companies like Life360 don't exactly say in big red letters "we will track you and sell your data."
Again if someone wants to break into my car then they don't need to track where it is to do so. Second that is what I have insurance for. I don't live my life scared.Yet that is exactly what is happening with people tracking cars to steal with Airtags.
Car Thieves Are Using AirTags to Track Vehicles
York Regional Police said at least five vehicles have been targeted by car thieves who used Apple's item tracker.www.pcmag.com
Wash/rinse/repeat with Tile/Life360, and with even more exact data from Life360/Tile.
BL.
This changes nothing for me. It isn't a zero sum game. If I was going to monetize my data then I would care. I am not and would not so I simply don't care. I worry about furthering my career and financial situation far more than worrying about things like this.
Very bad. But seems as if it is mentioned in privacy policy. Most will not be reading through this. Either way very bad
I don't use these free services but often you don't get a choice if the services are not available otherwise. And even then companies will still harvest the data and either use it themselves or sell it in other ways.
With iTunes, you’re paying for the computer, and for the iPod, and for the iPhone, and for the purchased songs, videos, ringtones (and at one time movies too), and for the Apple Music subscription. Apple’s revenue is coming from your purchase of the above products or services.
Again, it is not a dumb generalization. You are just missing a broader theme by having a very narrow focus. You’re basically saying something along the lines of “if I go to a restaurant and I pay for my food but I can use the bathroom for free then I am the product… and I know I am not so this is a a dumb generalization”. You have to consider the full picture and understand the broader exchange of money to make the determination of whether or not you are the customer or the product (or both).
I used iTunes for years without a Mac or an iPod or an iPhone or ever buying a thing from the iTunes Store. Those were all options available to me, but there was absolutely no requirement to own Apple anything. Apple Music wasn't even a thing yet.
I guess we just have different thresholds for how accurate a generalisation needs to be in order to be useful.
Except that little snafu about Apple proposing to scan images locally on iPhones. *cough*
Yes, it's almost like people are unhappy with a system that allows companies to bury details like "we're going to sell your precise location data to anyone that wants it" with legalese in the TOS.
Here's the Tile TOS. Raise your hand if you think the average user has the time, patience, and legal knowledge to actually understand everything they're agreeing to just to be able to activate a $25 device that helps them find their misplaced keys:
Call them 'shocked' or whatever you want, but this is the public pushing back on these kinds of policies.
I've had a completely different experience than you--the Find My live tracking feature that was added in iOS 15 has worked flawlessly for my family on dozens of iOS and macOS devices from the day it was introduced. I've actually been impressed with how accurate it is when viewing a user traveling through, say, a busy highway interchange where it would be easy for the service to get confused.
FYI, here's the response you get from Tile when requesting your account to be deleted:
Tile said:
Again, there’s a distinction. iTunes was/is free so it can entice you to buy music. That’s the product.
I've already been slowly replacing my Tiles with AirTags but this will make me get rid of the last few Tiles I have.
When iTunes (and the store) was introduced for Windows, it was meant to give greater exposure for Apple products as well as enable and encourage many more people to buy from the store as conveniently as possible. Increasing the number of people using/enjoying Apple products increased the number of people buying from Apple, whether it was something from the iTunes store or an Apple device.
It was similar to how a lot of "free" apps work these days. In this case, iTunes was the free app and optional in-app purchases came from the iTunes store.
Apple clearly felt that the greater usage resulting from offering iTunes for free would lead to more Apple purchases and profits elsewhere (iTunes store, Apple store, etc.) versus charging for iTunes. The publicity from having a desirable, popular, arguably market leading product was a benefit too.
Right; it was a “gateway drug” to Apple products, both music purchases and their hardware. It wasn’t (as far as I know) selling your information, or tracking your location to be sold.
I pay for a Life360 account to get some of the premium features, and I still had to opt out of tracking. (I didn't know about this tracking business).
A useful reminder that the internet is 99% scams and thieves, and that percentage is rounded down pretty aggressively
First, “what about Apple?” and now even the classic “I have nothing to hide” argument came up! Cheers!
Well said. Some never fail to amaze.
