Google Consolidates Data Permissions Across Services With a Domain Move
Garrit Franke, in a short post to his blog:
Yesterday I was asked to allow the usage of location services for Google Maps seemingly out of nowhere. Of course I accepted. After all, I just wanted to check a route to a local business and I was in a hurry. Back home I opened Google Maps again, and noticed that
maps.google.comnow redirects togoogle.com/maps. This implies that the permissions I give to Google Maps now apply to all of Googles services hosted under this domain.
I’m not sure how much this matters in the long run as I have the feeling the small print we all agree to would have allowed Google to connect the dots on our data anyway. But it still feels like a sneaky move on Google’s part. Covert moves shouldn’t be in the playbook of the personal data game.