299
Google killed Maps Timeline, so I self-hosted a better one [OwnTracks]
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
299 points (99.0% liked)
Selfhosted
46672 readers
262 users here now
A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
Rules:
-
Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
-
No spam posting.
-
Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.
-
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
-
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
-
No trolling.
Resources:
- selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
- awesome-selfhosted software
- awesome-sysadmin resources
- Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting
Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.
Questions? DM the mods!
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Privacy? I'm sure that Google tried so hard to monetize it and after so many years they didn't found a way, couldn't use it for ai training too, so they decided to turn it off and save millions in database costs.
They still exfiltrate user movements for improving Google maps, it's just that they don't need to keep them indefinitely or for years or maintain a nice interface for that
I'm sure Google does monetize the gps data instantly, then throws it away rather than save old data that only costs money to respond to government requests.
This is a case where privacy is economically beneficial to Google.
Yes, that's correct, Google didn't do it out of the goodness of their non-existent heart, they made what they think is the best financial decision.
It's a good one for the consumer though, whether see that or not. It's good that your every move ever taken is stored in a company's database.
Don't worry, they most certainly used it to train a decent model of any typical American demographics movements before scrubbing it.