I don't understand the point you're making (unless you're being snarky.) You recognize that most other users of Google Location History can do the same?
> My first question, though, would be "Why?" What value do you get out of tracking your location with any great detail that self hosting it would be of much value?
Another way of framing is what utility Location History can provide to users. Some use cases are casual ("Where did I go exactly on this trip two years ago?", "Where did I eat when I was in X city 9 months ago?", etc) while other people have personal uses for it: https://towardsdatascience.com/analyzing-my-google-location-...
> However, various cheap GPS loggers and Google Earth import probably would do a lot of what you're looking for.
That would probably work, as well perhaps another OSM-based mapping application. I don't know the value of all that extra metadata which is computed though (as highlighted in the above article).
I am. I'm referring to my brain in a "tech industry buzzword" way. It is, technically speaking, a trained neural network. Just a biological one, not a silicon/code based one. I happen to like it, and it can also do things like tell the difference between a low moon in the sky through a smoke haze and a traffic light.
> Another way of framing is what utility Location History can provide to users.
"If there are any positives, then the technology is worth using!" style thinking misses, entirely, the concept of opportunity cost, and the various downsides.
I won't argue that it's not pretty cool to see everywhere you've been - but it's also an exceedingly detailed record of who you are, and anyone who claims it can be suitably anonymized is full of crap (see the Grindr Bishop for a solid case study here).
Where I really start to get upset, though, is that there's no opt-in for this, other than some vague, generic, "nobody reads this and it doesn't say anything anyone would understand anyway" clickthroughs.
Android doesn't have a, "Would you like us to keep a record of your location and everywhere you've been? You can review it later and see what cool places you've been!" sort of opt-in. It just does it.
Google clearly is getting some value from that data, and it's not at all clear what it is.
I view it similarly as others looking at methods to self-host their photo backup with timeline indexing and searching, etc.
https://petewarden.github.io/iPhoneTracker/
"the advantages of Location History"
I thought that this data would be useful to help geotag the photos in my iPhoto library. So I wrote a little script to parse the iPhone data, and cross-match the timestamps with photos. Never became really popular though, probably because people now use phones to take photos and they already include the location in the EXIF data.
iPhone Geotag
https://peterburk.github.io/programs/#iPhoneGeotag
"keeping that data to themselves"
Once the bug was fixed, and Apple stopped storing location data indefinitely, I thought it would be kind of handy as a feature. So I wrote a little PHP script that ran on my jailbroken iPhone and saved a log of my location every 30 minutes.
It recorded data from Monday, May 12, 2014 3:44:52 PM to Wednesday, April 8, 2015 9:00:06 AM
My battery life got worse, because the GPS kept turning on. During that whole year, I never wanted to check the data, not even once. So I turned off the script. Not tracking myself made me less self-conscious about where I was walking and what I was doing, and it was a relief.
I do use an iPhone, but it's an old 4S with iOS 6.1.3, and I only switch on 3G rarely in case of emergencies. I don't use iCloud for backup, only USB sync. The phone companies will know my location, but Apple probably don't. With the security features all compromised through jailbreaking, I can see everything on my phone so I know what data they could possibly get. And that's good enough for me.
For me the most uncomfortable thing I ever did was itemise how much money I had spent at different outlets. I discovered that I'd spent an incredible amount of money scuba diving over a 12 month period. Not something that I wanted to share with my partner.
Like you, I started logging my expenses too! And I still do that. I'm using some scripts on my phone, with one icon on the homescreen for each kind of expense, logging to a TSV.
It has made me more self-conscious about spending money, but that's probably a good thing! Pressuring me to give more money to beggars and spend less on bubble tea.
[1] UncleBob applied "clean as you go" to code, too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSaAMQVq01E&t=2021s
Even my partner's cat will stop eating its meal if I stare at it whilst it's eating (yes, it's a bit neurotic). (But unlike Google, Facebook, the Government etc. I'm immediately in trouble for teasing the cat.)
If you're trying to make a point to someone about how much of a problem data collection, use, abuse, etc, is - link them to the place they can view their own history. It's even more fun if you're with them and can watch the expression of utter horror form as they realize just what, exactly, literally everywhere they've been can tell someone else about them. "Hey, isn't that the kink club out there?"
Even on my phone when I search for "tires in <city>" it assumes I mean a city in the east coast of the US. Maps/Waze are only marginally better, showing me results 170+ miles from my current location, generally.
I use trackmenot and ad nauseam plugins on my main computer, so my ads are always 100% irrelevant - if I see them at all. Ad nauseam clicks every ad it sees, and stores the banner. It tries to track how many dollars of ad spend its wasted on your behalf, too. I'm somewhere north of $17k at this point lifetime clicks.
I know I'm not winning this fight but I can make it more hilarious for me in the meantime.
[0] google routinely can't, and i stopped using search because it made me do photo captchas every time. If google can't, i'm guessing other people are going to have less luck.
All geolocation based on GSM cells and wifi sends your location continuously.
If your threat level is NSA/nation state then this isn't good enough since they probably could get a copy before Google deletes it but it is probably enough to be useless for low level LE.
Did you realize that the world is a step away from total Panopticon (https://shorturl.at/mCJK2).
The "digital natives" don't care at all. The "millenials" are just ignorant. The "X-ers" are fighting to stay relevant and "young". The "boomers" are screaming from the trenches, but the echo is responding with the usual "OK. Boomer".
It is over. This is the Great Reset, created by Davos Elites and embraced by Corporations, Governments and "modern" people of the world.
This is the direct result of corrupted societies which abandoned classical education and liberal arts long time ago.
Recall is sometimes fuzzy with age, but it works well enough, and I don't have to worry about external queries violating my various rights nearly as much as with tech companies.
At this point, I think every piece of modern consumer electronics ought to be considered hostile until proven benign. I've worked with enough of them over the years, on different ends, to no longer trust any of them.
I'm also old enough to remember the before-times - when there wasn't the technology to track us everywhere, or, when we did have something breadcrumbing, it wasn't being automatically uploaded to whoever, wherever, etc.
My first question, though, would be "Why?" What value do you get out of tracking your location with any great detail that self hosting it would be of much value? However, various cheap GPS loggers and Google Earth import probably would do a lot of what you're looking for.