Google Maps Street View is Logging Your Every Move on Some Phones; Here’s a Way to Turn it Off

In thie file photo, Google co-founders Larry Page, left, and Sergey Brin pose for photos at their company's headquarters The search giant reported 2014 earnings with a $66 billion revenue in total, of which $18.1 billion was profit or income before taxes. (Ben Margot/AP Photo, File)

Google Maps and Street View is logging your every move on your smartphone.

Android users who are signed into Google Now has data sent directly to Google, and it can be stored there for months.

The movements can be viewed in an interactive location-history map. Some  have expressed worry about Google knowing exactly where they are.

However, there’s a way to turn this off and it’s quite easy to do so.

“Google apps or services may use Location History and Location Reporting data. For example, Google Maps may use it to improve your search results based on the places that you’ve been,” Google says. It adds: “Location Reporting: Allows Google to periodically store and use your device’s most recent location data, as well as activities like driving, walking, and biking, in connection with your Google Account.”

Meanwhile, Google says that “location history ... allows Google to store a history of your location data from all devices where you are logged into your Google Account and have enabled Location Reporting. You can turn off Location History at any point, but doing so won’t delete your Location History. It also will not turn off Location Reporting, GPS, or Wi-Fi location services for your device.”

One can turn off location reporting here.

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AP update: Google invests in California solar power plant 

NEW YORK (AP) — Google is helping to convert a one-time oil field into a solar power plant.

The Internet search company is providing $145 million in financing so that SunEdison can build the plant north of Los Angeles in Kern County.

“There’s something a little poetic about creating a renewable resource on land that once creaked with oil wells,”Google said in a blog post Wednesday.

The plant will be fitted with nearly 250,000 SunEdison solar panels and generate enough energy to power 10,000 homes. Google said the project will bring 650 jobs to the area.

SunEdison Inc. expects the plant to be operational later this year and supply power to utility company Southern California Edison. The plant is owned by TerraForm Power Inc., a subsidiary of SunEdison, based in Beltsville, Maryland.

It is the 17th renewable energy project Google has invested in. It has committed to investing more than $1.5 billion in projects around the country, the Mountain View, California-based company said.

Shares of SunEdison, based in St. Peters, Missouri, rose more than 3 percent in premarket trading.