Control access point inclusion in Google's Location services - Google Maps Help
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To improve Location services and estimate the location of a device, Google uses publicly broadcast Wi-Fi information from wireless access points and GPS, cell tower, and sensor data. This data is limi

cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/51680197

Append “_nomap” to the end of your SSIDs to instruct Google not to use your wi-fi access point for their mapping services.

To do the same for Apple, add “_optout” to the end of your SSIDs¹.

To boycott both, the rumor is that Google’s “_nomap” must be last, but Apple’s “_optout” flag must be in the penultimate position if and only if Google’s token is at the end. So you might have an SSID like “boycottCloudflare_optout_nomap” to boycott the baddies, for example. But note that “boycottCloudflare” is merely symbolic, to raise awareness of the web’s most harmful enshitifier.

¹ sorry to say I have no reference to cite for the Apple rules. It’s just a rumor.

update

The Apple opt-out procedure has apparently changed to align with Google. Someone refers to this page for Apple.

update 2

Mapquest is suddenly gaining popularity.

  • daveyOsborn@infosec.pubOPEnglish
    11·
    18 hours ago

    I’m glad that opting out is available, but there is no practical, technical enforcement.

    What sort of technologically-enforced mechanism might you envision that does not rely on legal enforcement?

    Lately I practice the only tech-enforced option I know of: wholly pull the plug on wi-fi. Indeed, this means I only have ethernet in my house and wifi radios are disabled. It also means for my smartphone to reach the cloud, I am reverse tethering over USB. Try getting a crowd of people to do that. I will praise you if you can get 10 people to do that.

    There is such a thing as bluetooth routers. So a middle ground would be to pull the plug on wi-fi and use bluetooth instead. Though it’s a compromise because we cannot¹ be certain that Google does not also harvest bluetooth. But at least the limited range would mean fewer cases where the signal reaches the street. Of course you would have to be okay with the slower speed.

    If Google violates their own policy, it’s legally actionable. So if you are going to run wi-fi you can do your part in helping grow the legal liability that Google has signed up for. I see no good excuse for not appending _nomap to the end of your SSID. It’s just pure lazyness not to.

    ¹ well strictly speaking, we might know from the location data whether Google uses bluetooth. But if it’s not part of the location data it would not be an absolute indicator that it’s not collected.