Read More: Tips for Detecting and Avoiding Spam Emails

Who Sees Your Location Data?

When smartphone users allow applications to access their location data, this data is then shared roughly 5,000 times within two weeks. Numerous applications, from Weather and Clock to Waze and MapMyRun, and even services such as Setting Time Zones, rely on this data to alter what you see. While this location information is most often shared with advertisers, it can also be used for more serious means. On the off chance that your data might be given to a credit reporting agency or even to your insurance company, why take the chance?

How Apps Track Users

Whether apps are using your location to provide better notifications or to better target their ads, these practices can often feel invasive. When collecting user location data, applications rely on GPS, Wi-Fi, or the phone’s cellular network to track your phone. Apps that rely on a smartphone’s cellular network to track location are particularly troubling because they face no obligation to explicitly solicit permission from users, unlike apps using GPS to track.

Fortunately, turning off location services disables location tracking with each of these three methods. By restricting location permission for the apps looking to track location, users are better able to control their online privacy.

How to Turn off Location Services

Turning off location reporting and location history is an easy step that Android users can take to protect their location information. To do so, users should open the “App Drawer” on their smartphone and enter “Settings.” Once in settings, users should go to “Location” and then “Google Location Settings.” By switching the slider off for both “Location Reporting” and “Location History,” none of the phone’s apps will be able to access or share location data.

On top of these simple steps, users should also look to delete their phone’s location cache. They can do so by tapping “Delete Location History” under the “Location History” tab. Or, you can save yourself some trouble and use Quick Cleanup to remove cache and junk files from all of your apps instantly:

YouTube Analytics
YouTube.com/Analytics will provide you with all of the tools necessary to track how your videos are doing. No need to download any third party apps, because YouTube will provide you with all of the tools necessary.

Read More: Apps to Track and Manage Your Instagram Followers

To start, you can filter your data. At the top of each report, you can apply a filter for further observation. For instance, you can filter by content, geographical location, date or time frame, subscriber status, and traffic by YouTube product (if it is available). You can also utilize a search function to search for content, location of viewers, and etc.

This data filter is a good start, but YouTube Analytics offers several graphical options that can help you visually interpret the progress of your videos. For example, you can implement a line chart that shows how your data has changed longitudinally overtime. You can also combine several line graphs on one template. For instance, you can juxtapose your viewing dynamics with total subscribers obtained. The multi-line graph will allow you to add up to 25 items into the template.

There is also the option of using a pie chart to help visualize your data. Like the multi-line graph, the pie chart will allow you to add up to 25 items to observe their relative size or impact on your channel. You hover your mouse over each section of the pie chart to see what item the chart is corresponding to. One big flaw of the pie charts is that you can’t see how these dynamics vary chronologically, so you must use the line or multi-line graphs to view this data.

Lastly, there is an interactive map that can help you visualize the global impact of your video. The map will display dark spots over each of the areas where your video has been watched. You can also click on individual countries to see more detailed information about how your video is being viewed in that country.

It’s all due to location tracking, a feature that takes advantage of your smartphone’s internal GPS (as well as other sensors) and follows where you roam. It uses this information in different ways. It may tag your photos, but it can also be used in different app services, like Google Maps, Waze, or Uber. These apps would have requested location access through app permissions when first installed.

Read More: Is There Spyware on Your Android? Here’s How to Kill it!

If you aren’t a fan of that idea, it is possible to turn off location tracking – just remember that when you turn it off, it may affect the way certain apps (including Google Now) function.

What’s Location History?

Location reporting and location history are both turned off until you turn it on, like when Google Maps asks you if you want it to store a location, such as “home.” Location reporting is an option on each one of your devices.

“Location History,” according to Google, “helps you get useful information – for example, automatic commute predictions, improved search results – by creating a private map of where you go with your logged-in devices.”

You do have control over your location history; you can get rid of certain days, you can edit your locations, and you can delete the whole thing entirely. Switch it off or leave it on, the choice is yours.

Turning off Location Reporting

Search through your app drawer and look for “Settings.” From there, find “Location,” which could be a tab under the “Personal” category. Depending on the make of your phone, it could be somewhere else. Once you find it, there will be a tab that toggles the on and off options for location.

Next, scroll down within the same page until you see “Google Location History.” Turn it off for your Google accounts and click the tab to turn it off on your specific device.

You can even delete your entire location history which is a gray bar located at the bottom of the page.