For as long as I can remember, maps.google.com was the defacto domain for Google Maps. Also for as long as I can remember, I allowed this domain to use the location services of my browser.
Yesterday I was asked to allow the usage of location services for Google Maps seemingly out of nowhere. Of course I accepted. After all, I just wanted to check a route to a local business and I was in a hurry. Back home I opened Google Maps again, and noticed that maps.google.com now redirects to google.com/maps. This implies that the permissions I give to Google Maps now apply to all of Googles services hosted under this domain. So far I only identified Google Flights to have made the same switch (google.com/flights), though I'm sure they're just beginning to transfer their services to the main google.com domain.
Congratulations, you now have permission to geo-track me across all of your services.
Smart move, Google.
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https://cohost.org/NireBryce/post/4929459-here-s-my-five-minut
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in reply to @NireBryce's post:
It's been like this for a while for me, but not tooooo long of a while. I noticed on work devices at my current job, since the profile isn't synced with my personal profile AND the job is new-ish, 'maps.google.com' isn't in my history so when I type 'ma' in the address bar in firefox, it doesn't suggest google maps, whereas on older / personal devices, it does, and then I just catch the redirect and it all works out.
usually it will prompt me every time i visit a website that asks me for location access even if i said yes last time