Comment by mohaine

8 years ago

Well, the locationsmart fails completely on my Google fi phone.

Switching from T-Mobile to Google Fi might be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire ;)

The Google Fi Terms of Service says they are collecting location data:

"When your device is turned on or when you use the Services, we may collect and process information about your actual location. This may include information about your current activity (e.g., driving, running, walking, etc.), which lets us know when you may be moving between different mobile and Wi-Fi networks." https://fi.google.com/about/tos/#project-fi-privacy-notice

I'm okay with Google collecting location information, insofar as they only use it to provide cell service, and not for advertising and don't provide it to 3rd parties. Unfortunately, their Privacy Policy states that they can use it for advertising:

"We use the information we collect from all of our services to provide, maintain, protect and improve them, to develop new ones, and to protect Google and our users. We also use this information to offer you tailored content – like giving you more relevant search results and ads ." https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en&gl=us#infouse

And they can provide it to 3rd parties. Note that they require "consent", just like T-Mobile's privacy policy:

"We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google when we have your consent to do so." https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en&gl=us#nosharing

So even if they are not currently providing information to LocationSmart, according to my understanding of their privacy policy, they are able to.

Are you using your Google Voice number? Fi numbers are GV and in cloud.

Somewhere in your sim/about under settings you can find your underlying phone numbers for Sprint/TMO that you can look up.

  • I would be interested to know about that... I don't see anything mentioned in the Project Fi Terms of Service (https://fi.google.com/about/tos/) about Sprint, T-Mobile, or US Cellular. I assume that by signing up with Fi you are also subject to each of their privacy policies, but I'd be happy to be corrected!

    • My fi number has always been blocked from everything (banking, paypal, whatsapp, etc) for being VOIP. Doing some xda-dev stuff, I see two separate underlying numbers for the two profiles. I can't receive texts on either of them.

Well, now it works on my phone as well. I wonder if it is only when on/near my work campus. I was outside but they do have some repeaters for some carriers. (I often get a message saying my carrier has "disabled voice services" when on campus)

... well now I'm wondering if I should have stuck w/ my Pixel + Fi instead of the S9 + T-Mobile plan I signed up for today. Whoops.