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Except in certain situations when you're probably pretty lucky to have it on.

I had a friend who ran off the side of a mountain in Colorado. He called 911, but had no idea where he was (he was from the Midwest). Within about 40 minutes, they had triangulated his location and had a tow truck and emergency vehicles routed to get him out.

Without his phone and the ability to locate him, he was pretty sure he wouldn't have made.



If he's called 911 then ipso facto 1) his phone is on and 2) all location features are activated (on pretty much any phone of recent memory), as dialing 911 enables just this.

The fact that the exception proves useful doesn't mean my phone should transmit and the telco provider, app manufacturers, and others record, possibly indefinitely my location data every few seconds.

If you haven't read Maciej Cegłowski "The Internet with a Human Face", do. It's quite simply one of the best and most completely cogent arguments against the advertising-supported services model I've seen ever and anywhere. He's "idlewords" here on HN.

http://idlewords.com/bt14.htm




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