Niantic makes money by constantly tracking our location, right?
Is this true? I read that some time ago and from that moment I removed the permission for both apps (Ingress and PoGO) to track my location at all times, and selected "only when using the app"
I was thinking that maybe if we want to start showing them that we're not ok with the current state of things we should start boycotting them this way. These weird bans, the community abandonment, the support inoperancy, are just killing the spirit and while many of us are cancelling our subscriptions and stop giving them our money, other won't want to do that that cause they don't want ingress to die, but to stop sharing our location with them all the time could also cause an impact if we start spreading the word of it and lots of people do that. That way people can still give money to the Ingress team, but we'll be hurting niantic itself with that decision, and I guess that's what we should start doing to show or discontent, maybe it won't do much or anything at all, but at least we would be doing something 🤷♂️
Comments
Is this true?
Nope.
I read that some time ago and from that moment I removed the permission for both apps (Ingress and PoGO) to track my location at all times, and selected "only when using the app"
You probably have many apps that track your location at all times.
Niantic has repeatedly, despite people claiming otherwise, emphatically stated that they do not sell your location to other people. It's not worth it to them.
The only use for it that other people see is aggregate data for things like "Look how much traffic your Starbucks saw thanks to our players" when advertising sponsorships for PoGo. They don't sell the data to anyone and never have.
You are the product, but as an Ingress player, you're a test product, not a location dataset.
niantic stated
lol
That's a far better proof than:
I know because I'm cynical and with zero evidence I've chosen to believe the worst of everyone.
But sure, you do you.
The answer is obvious since they use Google maps, Google earth, etc. Interestingly, Google recently agreed to pay nearly $392 million to settle location-tracking cases with 40 states. Niantic used to be a part of Google.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-location-tracking-data-william-tong-392-million-settlement/
https://www.npr.org/2022/11/14/1136521305/google-settlement-location-tracking-data-privacy
I'll just leave this here:
You guys can read through that at your leisure.
John Hanke pretty much made Google Maps and transitioned the functionality from Keyhole over (to this day, KML files still are Keyhole Markup Language files) to Google back in 2003-2004.
However, he stepped down from operating Google Maps (the geo division) when he started Niantic Labs @Google in 2010. From what I remember in past teardowns, Niantic used a monteziation service called Upsight.
Niantic uses OSM for their maps because the pricing to use Google Maps API is insane.
Correlation is not causation.
Circumstance is not evidence.
You can believe what you want, but reality doesn't care.
As if geolocation data is not valuable to marketers out there. If they can do it with Pokemon Go, why not do it with Ingress Prime particularly with portal scans?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/yehongzhu/2016/07/29/how-niantic-is-profiting-off-tracking-where-you-go-while-playing-pokemon-go/?sh=780fe17d6df9
Forbes.com contributor articles are about one step above a Wikipedia article.
a) Just because something could be valuable to someone doesn't mean it's sold.
b) It's not done in Pokemon Go either. You literally linked yet another "speculation" article.
"there are many other methods of monetization that Niantic could take advantage of."
They have said openly that they do not. Speculation by random hacks in Forbes does not make it true.
If you're worried about apps following you at all times, uninstall all social media apps (facebook, twitter, instagram, etc) AND ESPECIALLY all weather apps. Find a weather app where you just tell it where you are. I use Carrot, and set my location between home and work. When I go on vacation, I change my weather app location, then change it back when I go home.
Weather and social media apps market you and your movements more than all others put together.
Personally I'm not worried about them following me, idc about that. I just thought Niantic made money with my location and I didn't want them to cause I do not like the company but I love the game. But I've been told in here that that's not correct so it doesn't matter anymore haha.