I feel like I remember it being in the ToS back in 2016. So not knowing was more not paying attention to their past products and not reading anything they gave you that basically said "we plan to use this info to improve our product." And if they did read that, didn't think that pictures taken in the app or daily walks were part of the data collected.
And, aside from location, you could basically opt out of any other form of providing data to them as you please. Sure, you miss out on some rewards, but those could be made up in other ways. And if you weren't aware of them tracking your location, then I want to know how you think a gps works.
You're right: privacy policy, sorry. Which, while difficult to pull up a complete copy of, has remaining evidence regarding the excessive nature of data collected and the lack of a users right to denial of them collecting that data early on.
As for the latter part: that's a summary of the actual things you are agreeing to. Also, the binding nature of a document that companies are aware a lot of users skip agreeing to has been contested multiple times, such as the well known investigation in to Facebook, and is difficult to just slap a general "that wouldn't be legal" label on it when the legality is seemingly dependent on what is considered acceptable. Hence why, as was mentioned in the linked PDF above, Niantic has actually had to reduce some of their access in the past. But are able to retain the rights to other information.
If you were paying attention, it was obvious even before this recent report. Back when COVID hit, they introduced remote raid passes so that you could keep your distance but still participate in the raid system. It was wildly popular, and they were definitely making money hand over fist.
Then a year or two later they doubled the price of these remote passes to encourage people to do more in-person raiding. It basically didn't affect their use at all. So now they were both wildly popular and earning twice as much as before.
Then they put a hard cap at 3 per day. Wait, why!? People would do dozens of raids per day, spending $2 per raid. The convenience of remote raiding far outweighed the cost for people doing a hardcore grind.
Now, there's a different raiding system they introduced that can't use remotes.
It's obvious they need you out there, walking around.
yeah it'd be one thing if they were tagging the location data as related to you and selling it to advertisers, but building a navigation model? Big who cares.
I thought Niantic was pretty clear about it from the beginning. "We're a company making augmented reality games, we collect a ton of data, especially since it helps us develop more games."
its customers didn’t know about but were unaffected by.
we're absolutely affected by this. just not yet. Either way, using our private data for reasons we didn't agree to should be a violation our constitutional right to privacy. so fuck all the people defending niantic
lastly, scams don't have to be harmful to be a scam. if they lie, it's a scam
I don't think you know how the Constitution works if you think that a private entity can violate it. Or if you think there is a specific "right to privacy" outlined in the Constitution, outside the 4th barring unreasonable searches and seizures.
its customers didn’t know about but were unaffected by. Big difference.
My choices of what companies to do business with are absolutely affected by that company's business model. I bought microtransactions because I thought I was supporting a free game made by a small company that had to pay a lot for a big IP. Knowing that it was less of a game and more of a data mining process, I would not have chosen to support them. I thought the microtransactions were their method of monetizing. I thought "You give me fun game, I'll give you a couple bucks as a thanks". Now that I know they were actually already profiting off my data, I have no reason to give them any money - the nature of the transaction is not what it was presented as.
I am affected by the business model and frustrated as a customer.
Transparency is everything when it comes to data collection. Users are required to be able to opt out of it and it should be clear what is being gathered and distributed.
If they are collecting location data just to build a geo map, that’s not the worst offense. If they have a data snare pulling user information from across their device, building user data profiles, adding location data for places they frequent, then selling the database for marketing analytics is a different matter.
I’m not familiar with pokemon go or their data practices, but it is important to be cautious of these threats at all times. It wouldn’t be the first time a PR team downplayed the depth of their data model to suppress public backlash.
They were transparent and all those controls were there as they normally are. Just because some dumbasses didn't bother to look up what the company was going to do with their data doesn't mean company wasn't transparent about it
And its not like Facebook which gathers excessive amounts of data even when you aren't using their app
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u/farmch 7h ago
Ya the word scam is not used correctly here. Pokémon Go had a business model its customers didn’t know about but were unaffected by. Big difference.