FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, director confirms

Re:FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, directo... by lmeyerov on Wednesday March 18, 2026 @08:00PM (#47432938)

You can trace the big players

If Google & Apple & friends refused to take a rake and opened distribution, then I'd agree, net neutrality etc, not their problem

But they own so much, and so deep into the pipeline, and explain their fees to courts because "security"... and then don't do investigations. They employ some of the best security analysts in the world and have $10-30B/yr revenue tied to just the app store fees, so they very much can take a big bite out of this if they wanted.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, directo... by godelski on Wednesday March 18, 2026 @09:08PM (#47433498)

  > They employ some of the best security analysts in the world and have $10-30B/yr revenue

I'll never not be impressed by how many people will defend trillion dollar organizations and say that things are too expensive. Especially when open source projects (including forks!) implement such features.

I'm completely with you, they could do these things if they wanted to. They have the money. They have the manpower. It is just a matter of priority. And we need to be honest, they're spending larger amounts on slop than actual fixes or even making their products better (for the user).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:FBI is buying location data to track US citizens, directo... by antonvs on Thursday March 19, 2026 @03:35AM (#47436077)

“Priorities” is far too soft a term in this context. These are anti-priorities: not just things they choose not to work on, but things they’ll spend big money to prevent, up to and including bribing, uh I mean lobbying, lawmakers.

[ Parent | on HN ]