Foursquare android app tracks your location by default everytime ~ Hack4friends

Foursquare, makers of the popular app that lets you "check in" wherever you go, unveiled a new version this week that the company hopes will make it the go-to service for local search.

In fact, Foursquare founder and CEO Dennis Crowley hopes the new Foursquare app will become indispensable, providing users with tips and recommendations - more like targeted ads - based on their location.

"To actually get an app to talk to you like a friend would talk to you. That's what we're going at here," Crowley tells Wired in an interview.

In order to make this vision become a reality, the Foursquare app tracks users' "background location" - using a combination of GPS, nearby Wi-Fi signals, and cell towers - even when the app is closed.

Gone is the old "check-in," which required you to tag yourself at a location (this formula has been shunted off to a separate app called Swarm).

Now the Foursquare app pushes out notifications based on where you are and what you like - if you've told the app you like vintage clothing, it will alert you to nearby thrift shops, for example.

Admittedly, this sounds kind of cool - an app that knows what you like and makes recommendations tailored to you and your location.

But there's a problem that should alarm anyone concerned about their privacy.

Giving up your location whenever your phone is on - even without the app running - is the default setting (versions of the app older than 8.0.0 required users to "opt in" to get this service).

If it makes you a little uncomfortable for Foursquare to track your every move, you have to "opt out" and disable the feature in the app's settings or in the privacy settings when you log into the Foursquare website.

Foursquare location settingsHow to opt out

When you download the Foursquare app or update to the new version, the app tells you that your phone's background location will be tracked, and points you to the settings to turn it off.

To opt out, open the app and go to  Settings | Location Settings and un-tick the box next to Location Services.

This screen tells you that the feature will be turned off automatically if your battery is running low, but it somewhat obscures the fact that the feature is otherwise always on.

Foursquare uses your phone’s background location to help you find great places, even when your phone is in your pocket. When you arrive at a place with interesting tips, we'll send you a notification. Your location is never shared.

To disable background location from the Foursquare website, go to Settings | Privacy settings.

Un-tick the box that says:

Allow Foursquare to use my device's background location, even when the app is closed, including for features like sending you notifications with local recommendations or tips.

Now that's pretty easy. So why not let users opt in instead of opting out?

Based on Foursquare's business model of giving businesses a way to share recommendations and deals with users, it's probably a good assumption that the answer is "money talks, [user] walks."

As Crowley told the Wall Street Journal, the constant collection of data on users can reveal trends that can be useful to advertisers, who "might be really excited about getting their hands on that data."

Opting in means having options

You might be thinking, "What's the big deal? Users of Foursquare choose to tell everyone their location anyway."

True. But in previous versions of the app, it was the user who made the choice to broadcast their location, and only when they wanted to check in.

Now, Foursquare assumes you want to share that information with the app all the time, and without asking for your permission.

In the current climate of government surveillance, data mining, and social media oversharing, there's a growing resistance to invasions of privacy - even among people who don't hesitate to share what they're doing and feeling at every possible moment.

Even if you're comfortable giving away your privacy for convenience, it's more than a little naive to assume your personal data is well-protected and only being used in your best interests.

Look at the current crop of mobile messaging apps like WhatsApp and Viber - both were storing your messages in unencrypted form, until security researchers discovered that anyone could use Wi-Fi sniffers to intercept messages and see everything that users shared via the apps.

Then there's the 800 pound gorilla of social networks, Facebook, which is under fire from regulators and the subject of lawsuits from users for its aggressive data mining.

Facebook even copped to an experiment on non-consenting users.

If we don't expect the apps and websites we've come to rely on to give us control over how our data is used, one day we may wake up and have no choice at all.

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CHINA charges Microsoft windows 8 for backdoor-spying

Microsoft and China are at odds over the issue of cyberspying, with Windows 8 caught in the crossfire.

State-run broadcaster China Central Television lashed out Wednesday at the latest version of Windows and charged that it's capable of collecting a huge amount of data on Chinese society. In a transcript of the CCTV interview published by the Wall Street Journal, an academic shared his opinion on the type of data that Microsoft can allegedly collect through its OS.

"It's very easy for providers of operating systems to obtain various types of sensitive user information," Ni Guangnan, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told the interviewer. "They can find out your identity, your account information, your contact list, your mobile phone number. With all that data together, using big data analysis, a party can understand the conditions and activities of our national economy and society."

Adding fuel to the fire, Guangnan pointed to the classified documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden as proof that Microsoft has worked with the US government to obtain encrypted data over the Internet.

In response, Microsoft used its own Weibo account to refute the charges and deny all allegations of backdoor spying in collaboration with the US government. As translated in a story by Neowin, Microsoft's denials break down into five points. According to Neowin, Microsoft said it has:

• Never "assisted any government in an attack of another government or clients."
• Never "provided any government the authority to directly visit...products or services."
• Never provided a "backdoor" to products or services.
• Never provided client data or information to the US government or the NSA.
• Never "concealed any requests from any government for information about its clients."

Microsoft's war of words with China is part of a larger skirmish between the US and Chinese governments. Charges of cyberspying between the two countries is nothing new. But since the revelations of NSA spying activities were leaked last year, China has used the opportunity to accuse such companies as Microsoft, Google, and Apple of cooperating with the NSA to gather data and steal state secrets. Tech companies have acknowledged that they are required to share certain customer data at the request of the government but have denied that they collaborate with the government or build backdoors into their products and services to allow data to be siphoned.

Such charges can damage a company's reputation and bottom line. In the case of Microsoft, China last month announced a ban on Windows 8 for government computers. At the time, China's state-run Xinhua news agency said simply that the ban was designed to improve security. However, China likely has another motive for wanting to put the kibosh on Windows 8 beyond security fears.

Microsoft has long accused China of widespread piracy of Windows. In 2011, former CEO Steve Ballmer told employees that Microsoft's revenue in China represented only 5 percent of sales in the US although the two markets were about the same size, according to the Journal. As such, a significant number of the PCs in China still running the now-unsupported Windows XP may be using illegal copies.

Microsoft wants to implement a server-based licensing system in China as one way to fight software piracy, the Journal added. And since the software giant no longer sells or supports Windows XP, Chinese consumers would be forced to upgrade to a more modern operating system, such as Windows 8.

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