Life360 Plans to Limit Its Sale of Location Data

pcmag.com:

Life360 has told shareholders that it will no longer sell precise location data gathered from its 35 million users but will continue to offer aggregate information to a couple of its existing partners.

The Markup reports that Life360 made this disclosure in a quarterly activities report (PDF) on Jan. 27, which is after it agreed to acquire Tile, a tracking device manufacturer. Here's the company's explanation for why it'll sell aggregate data rather than precise location information:

Life360 recognises that aggregated data analytics (for example, 150 people drove by the supermarket) is the wave of the future and that businesses will increasingly place a premium on data insights that do not rely on device-level or other individual user-level identifiers. As a result, we believe this partnership will enable us to spend less time navigating the rapidly evolving regulatory and platform environment, while simultaneously reducing business risk.

Life360 says in the quarterly activities report that its deal with Placer.ai "expressly excludes Tile and Jiobit device data to underscore our clear message that data from Tile and Jiobit devices is not, and will never be, sold or monetised." (Jiobit makes real-time child tracking devices.)

The decision also follows a report from The Markup which revealed that Life360 "is selling data on kids’ and families’ whereabouts to approximately a dozen data brokers who have sold data to virtually anyone who wants to buy it" and that it failed to properly safeguard its users' privacy.

"We have begun terminating our relationships with all other location data partners with the exception of Allstate/Arity, which will continue," Life360 says. That implies the company isn't leaving the precise