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The Next Major Version of Bluetooth Might Help Advertisers Track Your Smartphone Faster
FIFY
Let's not pretend this feature didn't trickle down the data harvesting dog-hydrant to us peons solely for our benefit.
I have to admit that I didn’t see this angle and greatly appreciate your comment.
Oh get a grip. I very much doubt phones will be giving out their exact location to devices they're not connected to.
Uhhh that exact technology has been in use for years. Your phone broadcasts/receivers a beacon at regular intervals while Bluetooth is on. Anyone can pick it up if they are looking.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/14/opinion/bluetooth-wireless-tracking-privacy.html
The process is so streamlined companies bragged your advertising profile is updated before you check out.
In order to track you or trigger an action like a coupon or message to your phone, companies need you to install an app on your phone that will recognize the beacon in the store. Retailers (like Target and Walmart) that use Bluetooth beacons typically build tracking into their own apps.
So, if you download apps like a Boomer downloads free tool bars, you've got something to worry about.
Also, doesn't Android only give location data to apps you're actively using?
The user may not be aware they have this tracking technology on their phone. The toolkit may be some app developer integrating a 3rd party library for analytics.
In fact, I was going to mention an app, Exodus, that can reveal these trackers and in scanning my phone, I found 2!. The first is home assistant, which is understandable, but the second is a Health app my doctor office uses! Man, that irks me!
How about a version that successfully connects to my car's sound system right away, every time?
Anything car related with BT is almost always the car's fault. They use shit hardware and don't care about the software because no one can do anything about it. No one is picking their car based on the BT support.
Might be your cars fault. I've been in some cars that are cooperative (current is like a 99.5% success rate) and some that are... Not. Used a VW Bora, aftermarket head unit worked like 1 in 10 attempts. Newer Toyota corrola straight up steals my Bluetooth connection so I'd give that about 140% because it will always connect even if I don't want to, am in another car and currently connected to a different device.
I think you are correct that it's the car's fault. I have an MPOW brand Bluetooth adapter that almost always works properly with my phone. I use it in my Mazda 3 that doesn't have Bluetooth built in. My 2017 VW Golf (one year older than the MPOW adapter) does have Bluetooth and it frequently gives me trouble. However, I'm typically able to get the connection to work by disabling then reenabling Bluetooth on my smartphone. Resetting the VW head unit typically doesn't help, which is the opposite of what I'd expect if the problem was with the car. The VW has Android Auto over USB, which I thought would be the end of my Bluetooth woes, but that has enough of its own problems that I just keep putting up with the Bluetooth.
I feel like this is the first technology news in a looooonnng time that's actually cool instead of horrible
this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2024
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