Anssi Saari wrote on Thu, 21 Nov 2024 00:35:48 +0200 :

> It's my assumption and I thought it's a common assumption that Google
> sucks up any and all data they can and sell it to whoever pays.

There are two kinds of people, one of whom owns the mentality of slaves in
terms of how they approach problem sets, while the other type are free men.

Google does NOT hoover up the location data of free men.
Only the slaves.

For example, on my phone, how is Google going to know who I am even if
Google knows my location precisely (if I use Google Maps, for example)?

Anssi Saari wrote:

> Andy Burns writes:
>
>> I think their T&C say the timeline data is for the user's eyes only?
>
> What did the T&C say for those older things?

You'd have to ask someone who hasn't yet converted to on-device
timeline, I can't visit the old page now to view the wording, it just
advises me to use the mobile app.

In comp.mobile.android, on Sun, 17 Nov 2024 10:02:17 -0500, micky
<NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> wrote:

>
>>I have timeline working, so I must have done what they said, but I have
>>forgotten. I probably used the app.
>
>I too might have done what they wanted and forgotten.

I guess I just did this and I hadn't done it before and then forgotten.
I just got an email that says
"Your Timeline data is now on your device
Hi Micky,
You recently updated your Timeline settings. This email is to let you
know that based on the settings you chose, your saved Timeline visits
and routes are now on your device: Redmi Note 8 Pro.:

Timeline on the phone also changed since a couple days ago. Now they
offer to backup the Timeline "to Google servers over wi-fi when your
devices is charging and idle. This devices's Timeline backup won't
affect your account storage limits. You can turn off and delete backups
or move your backed-up data to another device any time"

So I guess some will do this and some won't, and they are saving some
space on their servers but not all of it.

It knows things I wouldn't expect it to know. I was in Guatemala on
vacation and I may have used navigation a lot, but one day I was on my
way back to Euro Hostel and I saw a restaurant with a
North-American-style parking lot, iow, right in front, and I stopped for
dinner. The timeline notes it by name. I'd forgotten the name of
restaurant. Another day I went to a mall, a modern indoor fancy mall
(they have several) and I may well have used navigation to get there,
but inside the mall I went to a kiosk, a place in the "lobby" or
whatever you call the space that is not in a store, on the 3rd level,
only 6'x 6' that google said might have what I wanted (I think I was
looking for a souvenir hat** for a friend) and it never occurred to me
to use navigation within a mall. But they had people in tailored
uniforms, or maybe with a little nameplate on their chest and I asked
one where it was, and he had to call someone to find out but then he
pointed to it 100 feet away, next to the railing overlooking the
lower floors.

**I did find some souvenir caps, but not the color I wanted so I bought
it from Amazon and, alas, I let her think I bought it when I was in
Guatemala. Many of the ones on Amazon were for sale in Guatemala. There
was a stand with several styles between the airport terminal and the car
rental location.

Yet the Timeline knows I was there and the name of the kiosk, Beyoutiful
Store. Again, I had forgotten that name. (A lot of the stores in the
malls had English names. I guess like in the US, a lot of stores have
French names.) But I only spent a couple minutes there, since they had
souvenirs but no hats. Why did they record it? Maybe... I had found
the place in my phone and then gone there with the phone on but without
navigation. Maybe timeline put 2 and 2 together and listed that as a
place I went. Then I went to a movie and I didn't use navigation. I
asked directions to that too, and it knew that too, by name.

Although it didn't know that I went to a bank in that same mall to try
to get money from an ATM or that I ate in the food court (and was there
for a long time. I called a friend in Georgia from there). Or that I
couldn't find my car and had to ask the staff to find it for me, and
wait while they looked. (Not my fault. I noted where it was in relation
to the glass-enclosed room on the parking level with desiccators and an
elevator, but didn't realize there were 3 such rooms (a big mall).)

It knows that I spent 11 minutes driving there, 6+ hours there, and 19
minutes driving back to the hotel.

It knows when I'm on a plane. Is that a deduction because I'm moving so
fast???

It knows when I'm home all day, but it gives the google maps Home
address, which is two townhouses away from my real address (for security
purposes). That means it "rounds" my location, that since I was so near
home (44 feet) and it was for 22 hours, it figured I must be at home. It
says from 00:11 - 22:19. I must have turned my phone on at midnight and
forgotten to turn it off. Every time I go home, it gives my google
maps address, 2 doors away. Another deduction.

It knows when I visited a friend and I'm sure I didn't use navigation
but I did have the phone on and probably the map application running.
And it knows when I stopped for lunch at a drive-through, and I know
that was spur of the moment, no navigation involved, and only lasted by
them from 16:04 to 16:12, yet they have the name of the place,

Another day I went to another friend and it just shows a straight line
to her house when the streets require a bunch of zig zag (zig zag which
shows on some other days.) it says I left my web-address at 22:59 and
got to her place 4 miles away at the exact same time. This was Feb 3. If
I went, I'm sure it was in the day time. Then it says I was there all
day the next day, Feb 4. I'm sure I left by 5PM the previous day. I've
never visited her for more than 3 hours. And then for Feb 5 it shows me
leaving at 15:43 and going to the supermarket in her n'hood, that I
usually do go to when I've been to her house. From the supermarket it
shows me driving 0.1 miles but it taking 20 hours 28 minutes and
arriving at a strip mall near me the next day at 13:28 and going to
Bedford Pediatric Dentistry. I don't go to pediatric dentists and I've
never heard of the place, but the picture shows the pickup door at
Walmart. I might have parked on that side of Walmart.

Then it shows me at a small shul not too far away. I didn't go there,
but might have gone to a friend who lives next door and parked in front
of the shul. Another conclusion by Timeline.

The next day it shows me leaving my web-house just before 5PM and
walking 0.8 miles, for 1 days 21 hours!! Boy, am I slow.

Skipping ahead to yesterday, i went to the same friend 3 miles from me
and I didn't park exactly in front and it says I visited Audio Sorcerer
LLC. Scary. It gives two buttons, Yes and Edit.

Another day it shows me walking to some places near my home I'm sure I
didn't walk to or drive to.

I turn my phone off a lot, and I'm sure this confuses it, but it doesn't
account for most of its bloopers.

So this is useful but not perfect.

>I think I'll stay
>indoors all of Dec 1, to be safe.

Yes indeed.

In comp.mobile.android, on Thu, 21 Nov 2024 09:43:17 -0500, micky
<NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> wrote:

>
>I turn my phone off a lot, and I'm sure this confuses it, but it doesn't
>account for most of Google Maps Timeline's bloopers.

When I go out, I don't always turn my phone on right away, but once on,
I don't turn it off until I get home again.
>
>So this is useful but not perfect.

Yet I found another day, just 10 days ago so my recollection if fresh,
and confirmed by the calendar I keep, where it shows me going to where
my barber is, at 14:48, leaving at 15:11 and arriving where a movie was
to be shown, also at 15.11. It wouldn't need to be the speed of light to
go 5 miles in 58 seconds but it would be faster than the speed limit.

But the bigger problem is that I didn't go to the movie place until the
next day. And I got there at 10:05(am) that day, not 15:11 the previous
day. And the phone was turned on, if not when I left the house, then
soon after 10:00 because I remember using the phone, killing time
waiting for the movie.

How did google decide I was there the day before I was there? How did
it know I was going to be there? LOL, well, it must gather a string of
data and then break it in to daily pieces, but not too well.
On another day, going to another friend it shows me going to Rockland
Woodworks, 350 feet from where I actually stopped the car, as the crow
flies, 600 feet when driving. I merely drove by the woodworks company,
turned a corner, and stopped a couple minutes later

On another day, the map shows me driving 10 or 15 miles away to the
county trash dump, but the list of places I go ignores this part of the
day, even though I know I had the phone on. Instead the list ends with
driving 0.2 miles for 22 hours. Even though I spent 20 minutes at the
dump. 10 minutes in one spot.

On another day it alternates between calling it Driving and Moving, even
though the distances on the map show I would have needed a car for both
moving sections, one of which was acc. to them 52 minues long. No
distances are given for Moving in the list, but the map shows all 5
segments to be each about 2 miles, and how did I start drivign again if
I didn't bring he car with me when I was moving? Why are two legs
called Moving and three legs driving?

On another day it shows me giong to Walgreens. I'm sure I did but it
shows me at the pharmacy and at the Passport Photo Processor. Coudl that
be when I spent a lot of time on the web looking at getting passport
pictures at Walgreens? Not for me, I was also at the front cash
register but I didn't see the photo area.

And anotheer time it shows me 2 and a half full days at the supermarket,
24 hours x 2.5.

I wouldn't try to get this 'data' admitted into court evidence.

None of this is a complaint. I don't want to see google spend 5 times
as much time getting rid of little bugs as they did writing the original
Timeline. It will never, should never be valid for court and people too
shouldn't assume they'll ever get all the bugs out. It's just a reminder
and a toy and should stay that way, unless google really has money to
burn.

On 2024-11-21 15:43, micky wrote:
> In comp.mobile.android, on Sun, 17 Nov 2024 10:02:17 -0500, micky
> <NONONOmisc07@fmguy.com> wrote:
>

....

> Yet the Timeline knows I was there and the name of the kiosk, Beyoutiful
> Store. Again, I had forgotten that name. (A lot of the stores in the
> malls had English names. I guess like in the US, a lot of stores have
> French names.) But I only spent a couple minutes there, since they had
> souvenirs but no hats. Why did they record it? Maybe... I had found
> the place in my phone and then gone there with the phone on but without
> navigation. Maybe timeline put 2 and 2 together and listed that as a
> place I went. Then I went to a movie and I didn't use navigation. I
> asked directions to that too, and it knew that too, by name.

There are two methods it can use: WiFi names, and bluetooth navigation
points. I don't know the exact name, but they can setup bluetooth
devices inside malls so that navigation works inside.

>
> Although it didn't know that I went to a bank in that same mall to try
> to get money from an ATM or that I ate in the food court (and was there
> for a long time. I called a friend in Georgia from there). Or that I
> couldn't find my car and had to ask the staff to find it for me, and
> wait while they looked. (Not my fault. I noted where it was in relation
> to the glass-enclosed room on the parking level with desiccators and an
> elevator, but didn't realize there were 3 such rooms (a big mall).)
>
> It knows that I spent 11 minutes driving there, 6+ hours there, and 19
> minutes driving back to the hotel.
>
> It knows when I'm on a plane. Is that a deduction because I'm moving so
> fast???

Probably. On one trip of mine it knew, on another it did not. Go figure.

>
> It knows when I'm home all day, but it gives the google maps Home
> address, which is two townhouses away from my real address (for security
> purposes). That means it "rounds" my location, that since I was so near
> home (44 feet) and it was for 22 hours, it figured I must be at home. It
> says from 00:11 - 22:19. I must have turned my phone on at midnight and
> forgotten to turn it off. Every time I go home, it gives my google
> maps address, 2 doors away. Another deduction.
>
> It knows when I visited a friend and I'm sure I didn't use navigation
> but I did have the phone on and probably the map application running.
> And it knows when I stopped for lunch at a drive-through, and I know
> that was spur of the moment, no navigation involved, and only lasted by
> them from 16:04 to 16:12, yet they have the name of the place,
>
> Another day I went to another friend and it just shows a straight line
> to her house when the streets require a bunch of zig zag (zig zag which
> shows on some other days.)

It is not tracking continuously, but at intervals.

....

--
Cheers, Carlos.

Andy Burns wrote:

> I've had a notification that i have until 18th May
> 2025 to decide what to do with my timeline.

New deadline for those who haven't moved yet, 9th June.