Apple and Google are no friends of environmentalists, in part because:
- Apple demonstrates contempt for #rightToRepair.
- Google uses AI to help Total Energy find new places to drill for oil.
Including “_optout” in your SSID expresses your non-consent for Apple to keep track of your wi-fi access point. Including “_nomap” in your SSID expresses your non-consent for Google to keep track of your wi-fi access point for streetmap purposes. I believe “_nomap” must be at the very end, but Apple supposedly treats “_optout” appearing at the end OR penultimate position in order to not force mutual exclusivity with Google’s string.
Anything we can do to avoid feeding Google and Apple are a form of individual climate action – however minuscule in effect.
You got any resources online that back this up? This feels like one of those Facebook posts stating that you don’t consent to Facebook reading your data…
No idea about Apple, but here you go:
I read about it a long time ago. I didn’t keep track of sources.
I approve of the message of this post.
I didn’t know about the Apple one, but ever since I found out that Google was mapping Wi-Fi networks (many many moons ago), it has infuriated me that this is opt-out rather than opt-in.
Unfortunately many services ignore these Tags.
The tags are only intended for two services specifically: Google maps and Apple. If you catch Google or Apple not properly treating these tags in Europe, please report it as a GDPR violation under articles 5¶1(a) and 6¶1.
Outside of Europe, you could probably still take some civil action if you can dig up the privacy policy whereby Google or Apple agree to honor the tags. For Google, this may be sufficient.