Some of the arguments for mutual tracking relate to safety, not cheating.

Me an my GF have been sharing location for years now, it has never been an issue and often been handy to see if one of us is driving from work to home or finding each other in a festival or theme park etc.

But well I kinda wanna surprise here and for that I need to drive somewhere where I normally don't go, so now I gotta find an excuse just incase she checks my location. Or I just turn of my Phone for an hour or two

Forget your phone at home?

Yeah, it is possible to be totally sane about it.

I have my mom's location, and it's good because she just turned 64 (I think) five minutes ago, I need to wish her a happy birthday, appreciate the reminder. But when she travels out alone, sometimes it's nice to know she got back to her hotel without having to bother her about it, so we do the sharing thing. And for hiking alone, sharing your location with someone beforehand just seems like a good idea.

This article is dumb. Location sharing is silly. People will abuse it, and those same people would've found some other way to abuse the trust in their relationships anyway. I had girlfriends as a kid who'd demand calls when I was at a party they weren't at. Dealing with a lack of trust in a relationship is a growing pain.

If your partner doesn't abuse it is fine, but that's also possible to change at any time.

It might have to do with how much Americans must work and sit in a car every day I guess. I suppose that sort of workflow makes sense. But then I'll definitely chalk it up to America bad. Thats not a life I'd want to live.

Then brake up with her!
Why you stay with partner that do not trust you?
Yea not everything works perfect inba relationship, but people should allow some space.

Yes we're teenagers. We've been married 15 years, ceremony was when we were three.

Privacy is important, have you never kept a diary? Do you film therapy sessions lest your partner not know what you discussed? Shit with the door open? You don't need justification for wanting privacy, you need privacy so when you have a good reason for it nothing looks different.

What if there’s an emergency?

What if there is? Get help, that's an insane fear to live with. If I am unconscious there's nothing to do anyway, the hospital or whatever will find her details in my purse and call. What the fuck am I going to do, sit there watching the dot on the map and calling 000 if it stops moving? You are a lunatic, we have society to take care of us while we're out and about and emergency beacons if you're like camping beyond the black stump or sailing the Pacific.

Its definitely a huge issue at hand.

they have control over giving that information to the 3rd party, but they don't have any control after that, over how the information is used. with that in mind, do you think they have control over their information?

they are choosing to allow a 3rd party access to that information

that's right, allowing that 3rd party. but did they choose to share it with the business partners of that 3rd party too? are they aware of what is happening in the background? even if they didn't just register-accept-next-next-finish it, most people have no idea about it, because there's so little discourse about it.

like, when I registered to facebook many years ago I had no idea what I was doing. I was using their services a lot for years, blissfully unaware that facebook is a shit company. and what control did I have at the end? the illusion of deletion.

Further most people don't know they are in abusive relationships even if it is obvious to others around them so the casually dismissive argument "well abusive couples shouldn't use it" is a trash argument.

If my partner could check my location at any time, how would I keep bday and anniversary gifts secret? The places where I go to buy things for her are not places I would normally go. She only has to randomly check one time when I'm at an unusual location for her to ask why and then I have to lie. Not worth it.

We use temporary sharing (can limit to one hour) when meeting somewhere. Beyond that, it's a potential liability.

Example: she once got upset that I wanted to go to the mail room (apt building) alone and didn't want her to go with me. She wanted to know what I was hiding. Turned out to be her bday gift and it was just in the commercial packaging with a shipping label. I let her go get it and she's never been suspicious of my motives since (this was at the very start of our relationship and we hadn't established the level of trust that we have now).

Anyway, again, the one-hour sharing is all we need.

a common way to keep tabs on friends, family and romantic partners
so I allow the app to alert him each time I reach my front door. In a disappointingly heteronormative and retrograde move, I’m more interested in knowing when he goes out – where’s he off to now? – and set up my own notifications accordingly.
Having grown up with the internet, gen Z are, generally, more comfortable sharing their data online; Snapchat, the social media platform notoriously most popular with younger users, has long incorporated location sharing with its Snap Maps feature.

Does anyone even have a private moment at all?
Also if I were to cheat I'd leave my phone in a very specific spot if I can. Faux location services may work, but mostly switching to a feature phone seems to be secret trick that shuts down these app fueled nightmare.

Oh, sorry, the battery is down I had to switch to my old phone for a moment!
When did we stop having private moments and thoughts?
I like tech when it aides me, but recently it has been feeding off my personal time and even some order of thoughts in ways it didn't do before. It almost feels like it tries to fix and set up human emotions in ways that are forced.

Do you want technology to replace normal communication and socialisation skills? Or does it even matter to you that it is what happens now. Remember that only a few years before nobody followed you all the day, and even the internet access was relegated to a computer room. How far have we come from that?

Whether you know it or not does not change the message. Abusive couples shouldn't not use this app, they shouldn't be couples.

My point is when people use this argument "Well abusive couples just shouldn't be couples!" it is a way to dismiss the danger of never ending surveillance that makes an INCREDIBLY problematic leap of condemning people falling into abusive relationships to simply suffer, tough luck... and it demonstrates a callous, ineffective and frankly worrying understanding of how abusive relationships formed in general.

Call me old fashioned, but I put it in the same bucket as a prenup

I don't agree. Prenups are passive, they don't do anything until not needed. all the while this is a major breach of privacy, for both parties, and also of trust.