Google web mapping can track your phone
If you have Wi-Fi turned on, the previous whereabouts of your computer or mobile device may be visible on the web for anyone to see.
Google publishes the estimated location of millions of iPhones, laptops and other devices with Wi-Fi connections, a practice that represents the latest twist in a series of revelations this year about wireless devices and privacy, ZDNet Australia's sister site CNET has learned.
Android phones with location services enabled regularly beam the unique hardware IDs of nearby Wi-Fi devices back to Google, a similar practice followed by Microsoft, Apple and Skyhook Wireless as part of each company's effort to map the street addresses of access points and routers around the globe. That benefits users by helping their mobile devices determine locations faster than they could with GPS alone.
Only Google and Skyhook Wireless, however, make their location databases linking hardware IDs to street addresses publicly available on the internet, which raises novel privacy concerns when the IDs they're tracking are mobile. If someone knows your hardware ID, he may be able to find a physical address that the companies associate with you — even if you never intended it to become public.
