Comment by tantalor
7 hours ago
> crowdsourced data, seemingly collected for one purpose
> Whether players knew it or not, those scans were creating 3D models of the real world
Kind of shitty reporting. Did users know about this data collection or not? Was it not disclosed?
Yes. You had to enable AR scans, follow the prompts that tried to ensure they were quality (although lots of people just scanned the ground), then click a big green upload button. When completed, you were compensated with in-game items.
I think it was quite obvious they were harvesting data although lesser technical players maybe weren't.
What's less obvious is the fact they record all your location data for who-knows-what purposes.
The privacy policy was just a generic corporate "we may collect some information to improve a service" crap.
Technically, lawyers will argue that users had to opportunity to inform themselves.
Practically, nobody knew.
The quests themselves are prominently labeled "AR mapping". You don't need to go into the privacy policy to know what they are.
It is not at all clear that the mapping is for purposes other than the AR features in the game itself though. In fact Niantic advertised the scanning field research as helping them make richer experience at PokeStops (which they did).
Niantic was much more upfront about this with Ingress, so people who know the company's history will likely guess that Pokemon Go is serving the same purpose, but for someone coming into the game without that background, there is nothing in the game itself that indicates that data is being collected for other commercial purpose.
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