YouTube Music realizes it doesn’t need your precise location, after all
Of all your personal data that you strive to keep private, yourphysical locationis one particularly vulnerable piece of information, but also one where there are some good reasons why certain apps need to have it. With this in mind, Android allows you to limit access to your location on a per-app basis when you run software for the first time.YouTube Musichas been using precise location data to generate recommendations, but apparently it’s had a change of heart about needing that level of detail, and going forward your approximate location will suffice.
So far, location-based recommendations have only worked if you’ve granted the YouTube Music app precise location access and opted into Google Location History. With that data, YouTube Music would suggest playlists tailored to where you were (and what it presumed you might be up to), like high-energy workout tracks for when you go the gym. These recommendations show up as pill-shaped buttons under the search bar on the home screen of the YouTube Music app.
Google says it has found anew wayto deliverpersonalized recommendationsthat no longer requires your precise location data. Any old precise location data and recommendations made from it will be deleted.
The service won’t stop accessing your location altogether, though, and instead will shift to just using your approximate location. That means you’ll still be able to enjoy recommendations based on the weather in your city or the top songs in your country. Google specifies these changes come into effect on September 26.
Privacy advocates will probably herald the change as an appropriate step, and we’re glad to hear it, too. If you’re sad about location-based playlists going away, remember that the change is a month out, so you have enough time to assemble the songs you’ll miss the most from those recommendations into dedicated playlists.
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