this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2024
115 points (96.7% liked)

Today I Learned

17785 readers
1437 users here now

What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.

** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**



Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

TL;DR Some cellular cetwork providers triangulate your location and sell it to god knows who. And since real anonymous data is a lie, those who buy that data probably can tell who and where you are. Check if you can opt-out.


A while ago I went on a trip to Hamburg for a few days and I kept wondering how these bits of advertisement that keep comming though, even though I block pretty much everything, knew my location and just started recommending stuff in Hamburg. I did not share my location and only rarely even used any kind of tech those days.

So, I did a bit of research and stumbled upon an article (german, sorry) which basically said that the provider Telefonicá sells 'anonymous' location data of their clients.

Telefonicá not only has their own service, but also offers their service to Vodafone and PremiumSim for example. And no, it's not the data you give out by activating GPS tracking. They locate you by cellular triangulation. They of course do say, that the data is anonymous, but companies buying this kind of information are likely to already have a lot of other information and are able to conclude who this location data belongs to. Additionally I did not check if it is really location data only, but it wouldn't be hard to package that data with for example data about your phone: https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/133427/can-cellular-network-providers-detect-the-phone-model-make-when-their-sim-is-act#:~:text=Network%20provider%20also%20accesses%20your,handset%20is%20valid%20to%20use.

Basically by simply having a contract with them or their partners, I accepted this. You can opt out. But it's not like anyone tells you about this.

For the folks in Germany - just send 'Abmelden' via SMS to 66866. (On this note, don't forget to trust no one on the internet and always double check these kinds of information. =)

For other folks - Sorry, didn't research much further.

top 4 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Creepy! Don’t let them get away with this. I have t-mobile, do they do this?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Probably, but there's also a high possibility that you own a smartphone and use proprietary apps that also sell your data.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Thanks!

Möchten Sie sich hingegen hiervon abmelden, oder später wieder anmelden, gehen Sie bitte wie folgt vor:

  1. Senden Sie eine SMS mit dem Text Anmelden oder Abmelden an die Kurzwahl 66866.
  2. Anmelden steht für „Ich nehme teil“, Abmelden für „Ich möchte nicht teilnehmen“.
  3. Sie erhalten nach Eingang Ihrer SMS eine Bestätigung.

https://www.telefonica.de/dap/selbst-entscheiden.html

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago

But like, how else could we have maps features to predict how long a drive will take, which route to take, or how busy a place is? There's pros and cons obviously, we need better policies for sure, but there are legitimate reasons for anonymous location data, even real time.

Imagine a fire truck taking the logical route based on maps only, then finding out it's impossible to get to the fire in time.