Codebreaker

Everybody wants to know where you are

John Moe May 10, 2011

As the Senate gathers today to hear from Apple and Google about their location data collection practices, the Wall Street Journal explores all the other businesses hovering over your location data. Insurance companies are getting into the racket, collecting information about where a car goes, how the driver accelerates and so on. Shopping malls are starting to use the data to map your route when you’re shopping. BMW is looking into data from cars to put together real-time traffic reports. Of course, all this info can be used for and against you. Recently, one car navigation device company sold its user data to the Dutch government which was using the data to set up speed traps.

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