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Important Warning about Google Maps update!

SimonM123

Newbie
Sep 23, 2010
33
0
Hi everyone

I think I've found quite a serious problem with the Google maps for Android update that just came out late last week.

I have a Latitude account, but I havent signed it in on this phone as I don't want battery and data being wasted updating my location, plus most of the time the whole location tracker thing is a bit Big Brother for me anyway. But after the update, one of my friends warned me that i had appeared on Latitude, and it turns out that the update signed me in there and set itself to automatically update my location.

If this is happening to others, this represents a serious lapse at Google - it should be up to me to switch on the service, it should not automatically sign in - let alone automatically update my location! This phone has never prompted me to switch it on, and that is not acceptable. My location is a private matter and my battery life and data are precious, goddamnit.

Please let me know your experiences, as if this is a wider issue I will report it to Google.
 
I had never opened the program until I read this. I got a message about your location being shared and I had to choose to accept or decline agreeing to this. I clicked Don't Accept.

It showed me my location, but I'm quite sure it didn't share it with others. I went to the menu and I had to click join latitude and allow before it actually shared my location.
 
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Latitude only shares your location with anyone that you have approved, so theres no worries that even if its running, strangers or hackers could get your location.

Plus, anytime Latitude starts up on your phone, you will get an email in your gmail account instantly to tell you that your location is being shared.
 
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It doesnt turn on unless you click the "join latitude" icon at the bottom of GMaps.

As I've said, at no point did I click this button. I gave Latitude no cause to activate, and I have never even signed in to it on this phone. The last time I signed in was from my previous handset (Nokia 5800XM).

anytime Latitude starts up on your phone, you will get an email in your gmail account instantly to tell you that your location is being shared.

I have never received such an email, however I use Yahoo for email.

I am happy to accept if this was a one-off somehow. And I realise only my friends knew where I was whilst it was on. It's more the general issue that I should be in control of a service like that. Also, the impact on battery life was noticeable, so I'm glad to have switched it off now.
 
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Being that the whole purpose of Latitude is for you to know where friends are, and them to know where you are, your post begs the question...why don't you just uninstall it if you don't want them to know? Or, disable your location settings, and then Latitude won't use them.
 
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Being that the whole purpose of Latitude is for you to know where friends are, and them to know where you are, your post begs the question...why don't you just uninstall it if you don't want them to know? Or, disable your location settings, and then Latitude won't use them.

I want to use it sometimes, just not always. Its handy sometimes when meeting places but in general I don't use it a lot, I mostly installed it for a giggle. Again, this is all beside the point. Location reporting services should not self-activate, and I'm amazed no one has agreed with that, at least in principle.
 
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Being that the whole purpose of Latitude is for you to know where friends are, and them to know where you are, your post begs the question...why don't you just uninstall it if you don't want them to know? Or, disable your location settings, and then Latitude won't use them.

Really? It's that simple? Because Latitude came pre-installed on my phone along with Maps. It doesn't even show up in my apps list as a separate app to uninstall.

Since you so offhandedly comment that people can just uninstall it, I'm hoping you can provide the simple instructions to remove latitude. It must be easy, and I must be incredibly stupid for not knowing how to do it. Right?
 
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Really? It's that simple? Because Latitude came pre-installed on my phone along with Maps. It doesn't even show up in my apps list as a separate app to uninstall.

Since you so offhandedly comment that people can just uninstall it, I'm hoping you can provide the simple instructions to remove latitude. It must be easy, and I must be incredibly stupid for not knowing how to do it. Right?

Do I detect a bit of snideness in your remark, as I don't think my comment was "offhanded" at all? There really is no need for snideness in these forums. However, as you pointed out, Latitude is not a stand alone application, but is part of maps. I stand corrected. However, as has been pointed out by others, you have to JOIN Latitude and AUTHORIZE it to access your location in order for it to work. All you have to do for it not to do that once you have authorized it is turn off your location settings. Again, not a Google Maps problem, but a managing user expectations problem.
 
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Do I detect a bit of snideness in your remark, as I don't think my comment was "offhanded" at all? There really is no need for snideness in these forums. However, as you pointed out, Latitude is not a stand alone application, but is part of maps. I stand corrected. However, as has been pointed out by others, you have to JOIN Latitude and AUTHORIZE it to access your location in order for it to work. All you have to do for it not to do that once you have authorized it is turn off your location settings. Again, not a Google Maps problem, but a managing user expectations problem.

Perhaps I read your original post in the wrong tone. When I first read it, I though you were implying that the user was stupid for not uninstalling the application.


However, you continue to recommend turning off location settings. That is not a solution. There are many apps that use location for different features, not just Latitude. Turning that off will turn off location detection for ALL apps.

There should be a clear and simple way to disable or opt out of latitude after you have joined. It seems that it either isn't clear or isn't simple enough for some users.

However, I can't verify this. I haven't joined, and I am hesitant to join Latitude now, unless I know there is a simple way to opt out later.
 
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All you have to do for it not to do that once you have authorized it is turn off your location settings. Again, not a Google Maps problem, but a managing user expectations problem.

Again, on this phone (only acquired a couple of months ago), I have never signed in to or knowingly activated Latitude, I haven't used it in so very long, and nobody else uses my current phone (how I long for a significant other to muck up my settings :p). I even de-activated Latitude on my old phone once the battery consequences began to erk me.

Anyway, all I did was find something odd going on with my phone after an update, and went on a popular forum to ask if anyone had experienced the same issue, and encouraged them to check in case something bug-y was going on. I was not anticipating some of the more hostile and in some cases rather patronising responses above, and would like to assure you all that I only had the best intentions when posting this thread. I thought I may have found something potentially of great concern to other users and that I may have been helping by posting it, or at the very least ensuring that nothing bad was going on after all.

This sort of thread is what these forums are for, being able to say "this happened to me, did it happen to you?" - it's really useful, and my overwhelmingly positive experience of this excellent forum will not be too severely daunted by this one rather ill-fated thread.

I still don't know why Latitude activated on my phone without my knowing permission, but I'm willing to put it down to 'just one of those wierd things'. Perhaps I somehow nudged the button at some point, or engaged in a strange and highly-specific form of sleepwalking (sleeptouching? No, that sounds wrong...). But please do not chastise me for asking, or 'causing unecessary concern' with this - I merely asked a question, and if the worst thing that happens as a consequence of this is that people spend a few seconds checking their settings, this is hardly a bad thing.

I apologise if my initial post's tone was unecessarily provocational and panic-mongering, but I don't feel it was entirely unjust.
 
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Perhaps I read your original post in the wrong tone. When I first read it, I though you were implying that the user was stupid for not uninstalling the application.


However, you continue to recommend turning off location settings. That is not a solution. There are many apps that use location for different features, not just Latitude. Turning that off will turn off location detection for ALL apps.

There should be a clear and simple way to disable or opt out of latitude after you have joined. It seems that it either isn't clear or isn't simple enough for some users.

However, I can't verify this. I haven't joined, and I am hesitant to join Latitude now, unless I know there is a simple way to opt out later.

In Latidude, click the menu button on your phone. Then click Privacy and select Hide your location. Quite simple.
 
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