The Daily Populous

Google collects Android users’ locations even when location services are disabled

Authored by qz.com

But what if you actively turn off location services, haven’t used any apps, and haven’t even inserted a carrier SIM card?.

Since the beginning of 2017, Android phones have been collecting the addresses of nearby cellular towers—even when location services are disabled—and sending that data back to Google.

Cell-tower locations collected and sent to Google from an Android phone with location services turned off and carried in Washington, DC.

Even devices that had been reset to factory default settings and apps, with location services disabled, were observed by Quartz sending nearby cell-tower addresses to Google.

The section of Google’s privacy policy that covers location sharing says the company will collect location information from devices that use its services, but does not indicate whether it will collect data from Android devices when location services are disabled:.

According to the Google spokesperson, the company’s system that controls its push notifications and messages is “distinctly separate from Location Services, which provide a device’s location to apps.”

“It seems quite intrusive for Google to be collecting such information that is only relevant to carrier networks when there are no SIM card or enabled services.”. »

FCC Plan To Use Thanksgiving To 'Hide' Its Attack On Net Neutrality Vastly Underestimates The Looming Backlash

Authored by techdirt.com

Numerous reports have indicated that the FCC intends to try and hide its attack on net neutrality behind the looming Thanksgiving holiday.

Survey after survey (including those conducted by the cable industry itself) have found net neutrality has broad, bipartisan support.

Supporters of net neutrality also need to understand that the broadband industry's assault on net neutrality is a two-phase plan. »

Join the Battle for Net Neutrality

Authored by battleforthenet.com

Net neutrality is the principle that Internet providers like Comcast & Verizon should not control what we see and do online.

In 2015, startups, Internet freedom groups, and 3.7 million commenters won strong net neutrality rules from the US Federal Communication Commission (FCC).

But Net Neutrality predates Obama, has always been a design principle of the Internet, and does not need to be a partisan issue. »

Sacha Baron Cohen offers to pay 'Borat' mankini fines

Authored by bbc.co.uk

Sacha Baron Cohen has offered to pay fines for six Czech tourists who were arrested in Kazakhstan for wearing nothing but 'Borat'-inspired mankinis.

On 14 November, local media reported the tourists had been fined 22,500 tenge ($67; £51) each for their "indecent" appearance.

Send me your details and proof that it was you, and I'll pay your fine," the comedian wrote on Facebook. »

Thinking in a foreign language, we’re less prone to superstition

Authored by digest.bps.org.uk

According to psychologist Constantinos Hadjichristidis at the University of Trento, this is because a second language discourages us from relying on intuitive thinking.

In a new paper in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, Hadjichristidis and his colleagues have shown another way that this manifests – when thinking in a foreign language, we’re less prone to superstition.

Participants rated how positive or negative they would feel in these situations, responding in the same language as the text. »