It is not just the Apple iPhone or the handsets with Android or Windows OS that transmit users’ location data, a PC connected to the Internet reportedly does the same.
According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, both Apple and Google collect information from PCs through the browsers while on Wi-Fi networks. Both companies use computer-location data to build highly precise databases of Wi-Fi networks, said the report.
Apple collects information from some Apple Macintosh computers, while Google does it from computers that use its Chrome browser or search "toolbar."
In response to the recent reports on secret files in the OS of phones that track user movements without consent, both Apple and Google have said that they do so anonymously. They have also said that the data they collect are not targeted.
The companies typically ask users some kind of permission before they start gathering data, but sometimes users do not understand why they are being asked to share the data or how the data will be stored and used.
Some Apple computers ask location data to display the correct local time, while Google gets location data via the toolbar, when a user agrees to let a website such as Twitter.
