Google to Use You to Collect Traffic Data from Maps

Google has now come up with the plan to use mobiles that have maps for mobile installed on them to get hold of live traffic data. This was announced in the Google blog which said that a GPS enabled mobile uses Google maps for mobile and when you select your location, your mobile sends anonymous data bits back to Google which gives an exact description of the speed of your movements. This bit of information about you is compared to all other phones in the vicinity and this is what feeds Google the real time traffic information.

This does not require any additional effort from your point. All that you have to do is switch on Google maps for mobile before you get into your car. As the number of people who do this increases there will be better and more accurate traffic results that are generated.

Google does not plan to give away the figures regarding the number of Google maps for mobile users but it remains the fact that it is the most important feature accredited to the iPhone and is also present in most other kinds of smart phones. Statistics say that there are roughly many millions who posses such location aware devices who drive through the peak hour of traffic

There is talk about the security involved and Google says that they know what they are doing as all the data transmitted is completely anonymous. Users will not probably mind if the world knows how fast they drive, but it is another thing to make their destinations known. And Google guarantees that privacy protection was their main goal. They do not want people knowing the travel details of one another, so all the details of the source and destination are completely deleted in a manner that even Google cannot access it.

Critics will not be completely satisfied with these assurances about the safety precautions taken, especially in the EU. It is but fair to attribute commendation to Yahoo at this point because they were one of the first to give real time traffic information on maps in the year 2004.

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