What's amazing to me is how much power they have yet they aren't ever looked into for antitrust laws like Microsoft and AT&T were. At least not that I am aware of. I assume it has something to do with how close a company is to the current government in power and the fact that the NSA sure would love all that data too or maybe that's just a conspiracy theory.
Doesn't seem too crazy to me. For an example of Google's close relations with the US Government: Julian Assange: Google and the NSA: Who’s holding the ‘shit-bag’ now? (2013)
I think you're right. My brother was telling me the other day that his new phone has learned where "home" and "work" are, and it automatically changes settings based on where he's at. I don't think he inputted that information; I think the phone just extrapolated based on GPS data. Kinda creepy to me...
Yes, and if you have location history turned on you can go to your Google account in a web browser and watch yourself walk and drive around town. If you turn location history off you don't see it any more, but I'm not convinced they're not collecting it.
Additionally, some (probably most) cell phone service providers constantly interpolate your position (necessary for maintaining signal) and store the data for some amount of time. It's scary. And that was almost five years ago...