For some time now, Google Maps has been offering users a new tool – a private timeline. It helps, so to speak, to recreate an activity on the map – just select the day, month or year to see the locations visited, the routes traveled or the means of transport used.
– We can recreate the places we’ve been and keep a fairly accurate history of our own activity. This carries a threat to our privacy. Users should be in control of their data. In this situation, they are ruled by Google, which follows one principle: data at all costs,” says “Rzeczpospolita” attorney Maciej Gawronski of Gawronski & Partners law firm.
If Google tracks its users so closely, it enables personalization of ads based on location. For example, if a user passes a store of brand X on the street and this fact is encoded by Google Maps, then on the basis of personalization of ads and remarking, the web browser will flood him with ads of this very company or service. The same may be true of restaurants, schools or even doctors’ offices visited by the user, inferred on the basis of frequent visits recorded by maps.
This can be a convenience but it is worth keeping in mind how such a system should be structured.
This system should be built in such a way that the user is in control of the data that concerns him,” stresses Counselor Gawronski.
Read more about the new Google maps feature in the RP article
