Let's see, searching everyone in my family:
Me and my dad: Not even close. Not even in the same time zone for that matter.
Step-mom and one step-brother: Close enough to be a place they have been. Still off by a lot.
Brother: This one was eerily close. It placed him at a place we often visit, but we aren't there a whole lot anymore.
Other step brother: This one was actually in the "very scary" territory. It placed him with a few miles of where he lives. In fact, I think it is his girlfriend's place.
So yeah, not the most accurate, but it does show how little privacy we have if we're not careful with things like Google and Facebook. It's like I said yesterday in Google's toy patent thread: People should know by now that some companies, Google included, just don't care about your privacy, and some of them even rely on exploiting how narrow the "expectation of privacy" can be defined. I'm not saying people should stop using Google or Facebook, but they should be aware of just how much privacy they are giving up in order to enjoy those services and find the alternatives if they are concerned.
Pirate Of PC Master race said:
What else then can it be? It is evident that we gave google SOME info crumb that lead us to our general location.
Smart phone geotracking(which you have to turn off manually)?
Google account IP being backtracked?
There are a lot of ways of Google can do this. Many people broadcast their location in Facebook posts, never turn GPS off (which could really help this if the person uses Android), grant many sites access to their location, place their commonly-used locations in Google Now and/or Google Maps, search for local places while logged into Google (and if they're on Chrome, alternate search engines may not help, but I'm not sure on that), anything sent or received using GMail (even if you use an alternate email service but send mail to GMail accounts), etc., etc., etc. Basically, with Google Search, Google Maps, GMail, Android, Chrome, Google+, and other avenues, Google has a ton of ways to collect data on users, and the less secure you are with things like your location, the easier it will probably be for them to more accurately guess your position.
And again, this isn't to say that you should never use Google products, though I think it is best for people to understand what it does so that they make an educated choice to use their products. It's just to point out that it isn't exactly hard for Google to gather data on you anymore, and the more of their products you use, the easier it is for them.
