Earlier this week, the New York Times published its findings from an investigation into the location data that is tracked by mobile apps and used to help advertisers. The investigation revealed was that more than 75 companies “receive anonymous, precise location data from apps whose users enable location services to get local news and weather or other information.”
Despite the claim that the data is anonymous, the Times concluded that the information collected is quite precise, revealing the user’s location with surprising accuracy. The data is used by advertisers who then market ads to users based on their locations.
“It’s a hot market, with sales of location-targeted advertising reaching an estimated $21 billion this year. IBM has gotten into the industry, with its purchase of the Weather Channel’s apps. The social network Foursquare remade itself as a location marketing company. Prominent investors in location start-ups include Goldman Sachs and Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder,” according to the Times.
While these revelations might be shocking, these often unauthorized harvesting activities have been going on for years and seem only to be escalating in frequency and the granularity of that information, according to Chris Olson, CEO of The Media Trust.
Still, the tables could slowly be turning as consumers begin to understand how to better protect their privacy. “Consumers are only slowly waking up to how much information on their every move is being gathered, analyzed and sold by legitimate entities and bad actors alike," Olson said.
In addition, new laws on consumer data privacy like GDPR and California’s Consumer Privacy Act are being proposed. Combined with the recently proposed US federal consumer data privacy bill, these efforts “are shining much needed light on these unrestrained practices and their perpetrators."
“Just as GDPR is forcing companies across all industries and around the world to change how they operate, so too will the rest. And there will likely be a cumulative effect once regulations that are sweeping across the world begin to penalize violators. Although some laws set limits on the size of companies they cover, consumers will likely expect all companies, regardless of size or the number of consumers they track, to align their processes with the laws. This would also mean that companies of all sizes will have to carefully map and monitor all the third parties they do business with for any data processing that might violate their digital policy,” said Olson.