Google to let hotspots mask location data

Google is out to appease European officials by letting the owners of Wi-Fi “hotspots” opt-out of sharing data that helps pinpoint the locations of smartphones.

Google uses publicly broadcast data from Wi-Fi access points to quickly figure out where smartphones are located.

The process does not identify who is using devices but provides information for services such as mapping routes or finding out what types of shops or attractions may be nearby.

“Even though the wireless access point signals we use in our location services don’t identify people, we think we can go further in protecting people’s privacy,” Google global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer said.

“At the request of several European data protection authorities, we are building an opt-out service that will allow an access point owner to opt out from Google’s location services,” Fleischer said in a blog post.

Once a hotspot owner opts out, Google will not use that Wi-Fi access point to pinpoint the whereabouts of people using smartphones or other internet-linked mobile gadgets, according to Fleischer.

Smartphone locations can also be determined using GPS capabilities built into the devices or by their proximity to cell towers but those techniques are not considered very precise.

“We’ll be making this opt-out available globally, and we’ll release more detailed information about it when it’s ready to launch later this autumn,” Fleischer said.

Google also announced it had expanded the ability of users to veto search results that aren’t useful.

An option launched early this year allowing people to block unwanted results served up at Google’s main search page was expanded to most of the internet giant’s online venues, according to search quality engineer Johannes Henkel.

“We’re happy to be helping users all over the world to take control of their search experience and personalize their results in this manner,” Henkel said in a blog post.

“We’ve also started incorporating data about sites people have blocked into our general search ranking algorithms to help users find more high quality sites,” he said.

The option managed from a dashboard lets people block results so that links from that online domain will not be provided in response to future queries.

“Sometimes you’ll click on a result, find that it’s not what you wanted, and head right back to the search results page,” Henkel said.

“It could be that the result wasn’t quite right for your query, but other times you may be generally dissatisfied with a particular site appearing in your search results,” he added.