According to this article by eWeek.com, and by extension Apple themselves, Apple collect location data from your browser every 12 hours, though they do anonymise and encrypt it (though how much anonymising can be done with, for example, your home address, I don’t know).

EULA: “To provide location-based services on Apple products, Apple and our partners and licensees may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device.”

Specifically, they take information from Safari, the Windows, iPhone and Macintosh browser. However, you can disable this quite easily. If you don’t like the idea of Apple having your location data, and don’t use location-based apps, this is for you. I should point out, though, that this disables Location Services entirely and is a “small nail, big hammer” kind of solution. It switches off all location-based services, such as automatic timezone switching “Find my iPhone” functionality.

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard

Open System Preferences, go to the Security tab and check “Disable Location Services”.

Windows Vista and Windows 7

In Safari, go to Edit>Preferences, go to the security tab, and uncheck “Allow websites to ask for location information”.

iOS 4.0 (iPhone, iPod Touch)

Go to Settings, General, Location Services, and simply switch “Location Services” off.

iPad

Go to settings, General, and switch “Location Sevices” off.

(Thanks to @GabrielVisser for the iOS4 and iPad screenshots)

Job done. Kudos to Apple for at least making this easy, though hiding the practice in an End-User License Agreement longer than several books is a little shady.

Carl Lange

I’ll be writing and editing much of what you see on Flax.ie, and I pretend to do some programming sometimes. The majority of my work on Flax is based around user accessibility and general design and direction, and I’ll be throwing together many of the Flax Engine’s demo games. Follow me on Twitter for information on how I take my coffee.