Everyone knows your location
timsh.org
How I tracked myself down using leaked location data in the in-app ads, and what I found along the way.

An amazing bit of digital detective work here. Seems like Linux mobile is your only off ramp from being exhaustively tracked

  • misk@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    121·
    3 hours ago

    Does this happen to users in the EU? It’s highly illegal to gather data without consent here obviously. Even processing other data to derive location (which is personally identifiable information) means processing data for purpose that’s different to one that was consented to (if they tried to get any consent at all). There are big companies implicated here so it’d be easy to fine them into submission in jurisdictions that allow it.

    • plenipotentprotogod@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      2 hours ago

      The sample data shared in the article includes

      "c": "ES", // Country code,

      ES is usually used for Spain, so it looks like these tests were run from within the EU.

      • misk@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        7·
        2 hours ago

        Ah, there’s also this piece in json:

        "uc": "1", // User consent for tracking = True; OK what ?!

        My guess is that developers are pretending to get user consent to get more money from the ads. Unity could be encouraging this somehow but good luck proving that.