Uninstall the Weather Channel App If Your Location Data Bothers You
The Weather Channel, the primary app for many of us, can use your location data without your consent. The city of Los Angeles filed a lawsuit on Thursday, accusing the owner of The Weather Channel, The Weather Company, and IBM, its parent company, of using location data obtained through the app for targeted advertising and marketing sales without permission. Once installed, the Weather Channel app requests access to your location data to provide you with local weather reports, but does not mention that the data will be used for advertising or may be sold to a third party.
According to The New York Times , which detailed the lawsuit, the State of California believes that such incomplete permit requests are “misleading” business practices. (It is right). We often give apps permission to access all kinds of data on our phones without a second thought, but between leaks and misleading business practices, it’s definitely best to avoid disclosing information whenever possible, especially location data .
In light of the accusations and harsh Big Brother vibes that The Weather Channel is currently exuding, I would recommend removing the app entirely. If you’d rather stick with it while choosing a new weather app for iOS or Android , you can still use the Weather Channel app without giving it permission to use your location data. To prevent an app from accessing your location data on iOS, go to the Privacy menu in System Preferences, then Location Services. From there, scroll down to “The Weather Channel” and switch the resolution to “never.” Android is basically the same: go to Settings, then Location and toggle the weather channel to Off.
Bottom line: It’s impossible to be “paranoid” about digital security. Every time you think that you understand which lines of the company can and cannot be crossed, it becomes known that companies have crossed it all the time under our noses.