9/18/2023 0 Comments Air tagsIt’s not as if Apple, Google, or Amazon eliminating their products would instantly drop the illicit tracking options to zero. And Apple, of course, isn’t the only purveyor of such devices, which include inexpensive Bluetooth trackers. The issue remains that any product which is good at tracking things is inherently one that’s good at tracking people. Google could learn from Apple’s mistakes, but it’s more likely than not that it won’t. At the end of the day, the tracking milk has already been spilled, the toothpaste can’t be put back in the tub, and other tedious metaphors of that kind. Google has never been known for its privacy practices, and AirTags represent an untapped market for the company’s Android partners. Google could learn from them and come out with superior, more privacy-focused products at the end of the day, but it’s more likely than not that it won’t. Sometimes, the company walks back more thoughtful technological approaches and replaces them with Apple’s implementations. A Google tracker can only make things worseīut it’s not as if Google learns from Apple’s mistakes in all cases. Google could simply build in those corrections into its own tags and neuter the problem outright. Apple AirTags has been out for several years and the company has made a few mistakes that updates have corrected. With Apple’s Find My Network and the near ubiquity of Google Play Services in locations where Apple is weak, buying an AirTag and a hypothetical Google tag could leave even more people vulnerable to stalkers and robbers.Ĭertainly, Google has a better chance of doing things right here. To make these tracker tags infinitely more useful and powerful than competitors’, Google and Apple both leverage large installed bases of billions of people across their platforms. Apple has added anti-stalking features to AirTags over the past year, but the incidents keep recurring (with lawsuits and legislation accompanying them) because - well, AirTags are good at their jobs. They are small, cheap, inexpensive trackers that have been used to help people keep track of their luggage and other belongings, as well as for more nefarious purposes like stalking people and setting people up for robberies. The controversy around AirTags is simple. Apple’s AirTag knows controversy all too well And just like with Apple before it, Google seems set to trip and fall headlong into controversy. Though there is no time frame for this technology to be announced, the aforementioned Google I/O conference in May seems like a good guess.
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