Re: Oracle tipped off the world ...
David Nash,
I was just responding to the suggestion that you need location services enabled to use Maps..
You do. To use it properly. Google Maps isn't just any application. It's one of the core components of the software. You don't have to give dialler access permisison to the phone app, because Google don't have any other permissions hooked into that - so why's it different with maps?
There's only one reason why Google have crippled the maps app, unless you turn on location services. It's because by doing that, you have to agree to let Google slurp your data - and Google really, really, really want to slurp your data.
You can still turn location services on, and disallow access to other apps, but once on, Google get what they really want. To use your phone as a data logger in their global network.
Partly this is to track you personally, for advertising. And partly it's to improve the overall quality of Android and Google's services, with stuff like accurate traffic flow info, keeping the WiFi database up-to-date for faster aGPS and whatever other clever stuff their engineers can come up with.
So it's not all about Google evilly cackling away in their bond-villain lair. But I think they've gone too far by linking a global online advertising and data monopoly with a smartphone monopoly. They've earned both those monopolies by being better, in important ways, but the downside of being a monopoly is that society gets to decide what you're allowed to do with it. And I think Google need bringing down a peg or two. The kind of arrogance and disregard of both the law, and their users' reasonable privacy expectations, shows that they need a good regulatory kicking.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
