How to locate cellphone Google
Keep track of what's important
An Associated Press investigation found that many Google services on Android devices and iPhones store your location data even if you've used a privacy setting that says it will prevent Google from doing so. For the most part, Google is upfront about asking permission to use your location information. An app like Google Maps will remind you to allow access to location if you use it for navigating. Storing your minute-by-minute travels carries privacy risks and has been used by police to determine the location of suspects. Google says that will prevent the company from remembering where you've been.
With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.
How to use Google Find my Phone and Device Reset
That isn't true. For example, Google stores a snapshot of where you are when you merely open its Maps app. Automatic daily weather updates on Android phones pinpoint roughly where you are. The privacy issue affects about 2 billion users of devices that run Google's Android operating software and hundreds of millions of worldwide iPhone users who rely on Google for maps or search.
Storing location data in violation of a user's preferences was wrong, said Jonathan Mayer, a Princeton computer scientist and former chief technologist for the Federal Communications Commission's enforcement bureau. This is required to remotely lock or erase your phone and to change the screen lock.
How to Find Your Lost or Stolen Android Phone
Open your device's Settings. Open play. Open android.
Note: If this device has more than one user profile, sign in with a Google Account that's on the main profile. To use Find my Device , your device must be: Powered on. Signed in to a Google Account. Connected to mobile data or Wi-Fi.
Location turned on. Find My Device turned on. Log in using the same Google account that was setup on the lost device.
Select the lost device to see last known location and other options. Critics say Google's insistence on tracking its users' locations stems from its drive to boost advertising revenue. Since , Google has let advertisers track the effectiveness of online ads at driving foot traffic, a feature that Google has said relies on user location histories. The company is pushing further into such location-aware tracking to drive ad revenue.
At a Google Marketing Live summit in July, Google executives unveiled a new tool that uses ads to boost in-person store visits. It says it can measure how well a campaign drove foot traffic with data pulled from Google users' location histories.
Watch a video about finding your device
Google also says location records stored in My Activity are used to target ads. Ad buyers can target ads to specific locations, say, a mile radius around a particular landmark and typically have to pay more to reach this narrower audience. Computer science researchers at Princeton confirmed these findings at the AP's request.
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