If, like most people, you thought Google stopped tracking your location once you turned off Location History in your account settings, you were wrong. According to an AP investigation[1] published Monday, even if you disable Location History, the search giant still tracks you every time you open Google Maps, get certain automatic weather updates, or search for things in your browser. There's a way to stop it—but it takes some digging.
The problem affects anyone with an Android phone and iPhone users running Google Maps on their devices, according to the AP report, which researchers at Princeton University verified. That's more than two billion people.
The Google support page for managing and deleting your Location History says that once you turn it off, "the places you go are no longer stored. When you turn off Location History for your Google Account, it's off for all devices associated with that Google Account." The AP's investigation found that's not true. In fact, turning off your Location History only stops Google from creating a timeline of your location that you can view. Some apps will still track you and store time-stamped location data from your devices.
More specifically, the AP was able to track Princeton researcher Gunes Acar's home address, as well as his daily activities, using just Google Web & App activity, which he had shared with the news agency.
"If Google is representing to its users that they can turn off or pause location tracking but it's nevertheless tracking their location, that seems like textbook deception to me," says Alan Butler, senior council at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
To actually turn off location tracking, Google says you have to navigate to a setting buried deep in your Google Account called Web & App Activity,