Weather apps are secretly selling your location data to the highest bidder
https://thenextweb.com/apps/2019/01/05/weather-apps-are-secretly-selling-your-location-data-to-the-highest-bidder/
Location data is a funny thing. You need it to get an accurate forecast, and they, the app-maker, need it to cash in on a free-to-you service. Few, though, realize this data isn’t solely meant to provide you an accurate forecast. On some apps, it’s a revenue model all its own, with geolocation data being sold to the highest bidder.
This week the City of Los Angeles sued The Weather Channel for allegedly using customer user data inappropriately. The lawsuit claims that TWC “takes advantage of its app’s widespread popularity by using it as an intrusive tool to mine users’ private geolocation data, which [The Weather Channel] then sends to IBM affiliates and other third parties for advertising and other commercial purposes entirely unrelated to either weather or The Weather Channel App’s services.”