why force your customers to expose their exact gps location when connecting to a wifi?

To  be sure of what channels to use, I think they explained once.

What is a base station? Your router?

Reason for location access was previously explained here:

Search for “wifi region regulations”. SONOS wants to serve the global market. It would be very expensive to custom manufacture units and manage inventory for each region. Also, this would prevent customers from legally moving their units between regions. Sure, customers could ignore the regulations, but this could interfere with local services, such as air navigation. It’s very practical for modern hardware to adapt to its current location — if there is a mechanism for it to determine its current location.

But isn’t that what Sonos actually do. There have been recent reports about incompatibility between soundbars and surrounds due to the devices being manufactured for different regions. The WiFi regulations across these different regions are set to each speaker at the factory, therefore location access is not a factor here.

There may be some additional considerations with respect to available 5Gb hardware availability that I’m not familiar with.

The support has said that they need “precise location” to attach a speaker to a soundbar. It is absolute rubbish. 
 

They trying to exploit the gps in our phones to locate our devices and having the wifi password and wifi ssid exposes every single customer of Sonos to jacket attack. All the hackers need to do is hack into the Sonos database and then every single home wifi is able to be accessed. 
 

so many big companies have been hacked to extract personal detail (British airways, Qantas airways etc), but Sonos have the exact location,via gos of our homes plus the wifi and password.  
 

They have made us all a target for hackers

it is just so wrong 

You simply don’t need to know exact gps  coordinates To connect to a wifi

this abhorrent 

Perhaps it’s best if you return your speaker and buy a non-wifi replacement speaker? 

I assume you didn’t bother clicking on the post re-posted by ​@Mr. T where it was explained?:

“Location permissions are required in order to gain access to nearby WiFi names and devices. We do not use or store the location, but we do use and store WiFi access point SSIDs (Service Set IDentifier). These SSIDs are stored on the phone itself in the app’s own data store, and nowhere else. So, we are not collecting the location in terms of latitude and longitude, but we are using the permission in order for our products to function correctly, or indeed at all.”

Doesn’t seem that abhorrent.

There are some considerations for EU and UK surround users discussed here.

Yes I read that post 

but that “requirement” is simply not true

when your laptop is connecting to a wifi, there is no need st all to know the location. Being in range of the wifi signal and knowing the password is enough

I’ve read the terms and conditions  it is rubbish that their systems “requires” it  in end, it is a Bluetooth speaker connecting to a base station, via Bluetooth  

They are simply not telling us the truth 

Sonos is using the exact locatuon for their own benefit, the capture personal identifiable information of where their customers are , the wifi ssid name & passwords to store & or sell to other 3rd parties

it is abhorrent 

Someone should sell their abhorrent speakers, because I don't think the policy in question is going to change.

“Sonos is using the exact locatuon for their own benefit, the capture personal identifiable information of where their customers are , the wifi ssid name & passwords to store & or sell to other 3rd parties”

Source?

Plus, ​@Steve1098482, you do realise just the act of being online and interacting with social media, forums, websites, and online shopping gives thousands of third parties access to far more saleable data than Sonos will ever get hold of. You can reject cookies all you like but your data is already out there. 

​@Steve1098482,

If the SONOS units can determine their location, many violations of local laws can be automatically avoided by simply configuring the WiFi to abide by the local laws. Otherwise, a user would need to specify where the units would be deployed at purchase time. Users who move around the globe would need to be overtly aware of local WiFi rules at each location and manually reconfigure, repurchase after each move, or discontinue use of the product. EU and UK users are currently struggling with certain SONOS products that cannot be reconfigured in the field.

Here’s quickie discussion. It is a great service to SONOS users that most of the region issues can be automatically handled for the user, however, in order to provide this service at setup time the unit’s geographic location must somehow be known.

WiFi must be available to update hardware and the controllers. Even factory fresh units must be updated. Purchasing a new phone/pad/computer will require installing the current controller App and likely this will require a full SONOS system update.

You can minimize the risk of your location becoming known by using a VPN, but this is very tricky in practice. Further, I think that you should be leery of IPv6 because it uniquely identifies a connected “box”.

Overall, due to your aversion to potential exposure of location data, SONOS is not a product you should use. While it is pure speculation on my part, I think that the SONOS business model can survive the loss of potential customers with your mindset.

Hi buzz

what is wrong with my mindset ?

do you think it ok for Sonos should force anyone to expose their exact location to connect a speaker to a base station?

VPN’s won’t work because the IOS system that they leverage to get access to the gps in the phone bypasses the vpn protection 

So buzz, fundamentally, should any business have the right to force customers to expose their exact location of their homes ?

Hi jgatie 

I think you are correct about selling them

but I ask you directly, do you think a company should force anyone to expose their  exact location to connect to a wifi network?  
 

it’s that simple, they don’t need to know the exact location at all.  
 

it’s a moral question and a technical one

would you want your wife and children exposed to hackers knowing your home address plus the wifi ssid name and password

 how safe does it make everyone feel

this is not right by any measure of being decent 

I understand what you saying but even still, using the can’t location is a complete overreach. And storing your password and wifi network name (ssid) together with your exact location is just not right by any means 

Thanks for your message Rhonny,

may I ask a direct question, do you think it is ok to force a person to expose their exact can’t gps location at any time to connect to a wifi?

I share your concern and I try to be very stingy with my details. None of the email clients that I use will automatically open anything. This frustrates spammers who use tracking cookies and links. If a spammer or scammer is persistent, I’ll instal a block at my email service. Over the years this has greatly reduced the spam because loads of spammers often use the same hijacked servers.

I’m also as stingy as I can be with websites storing and reporting my activity without totally destroying a website’s functionality. Many websites complain about this and demand that I enable things. Unless the website provides a critical function for me, I simply leave, rather than being harvested.

But, in this modern world where ads, tracking, and harvesting pay the bills, I must allow a certain amount of this in order to accomplish things.

Edit: The PC and iPad that I use for SONOS do not physically contain GPS hardware.

If concerned about the possibility of GPS usage, use an iOS device without Cellular/GPS chipset for Sonos, eg iPad?

Thanks for your response

so Buzz, given your response, do you think it is acceptable and ok to Sonos to force all of its customers To expose their gps location when connecting a speaker to their base station?

the gps that I’m taking about is forced to exposed using the gps of your phone 

so it is a good thing or a bad thing?

That is not possible to use such a device. Their app forces everyone to use “precise location” when connecting speakers to their base station

again, so you think it is “good” to expose your gps location when simply connecting a speaker to their bae station?

And just to be clear, the modern world is shaped by us, the customer at some point. If enough people actually understand the importance of exposing this kind of data to a speaker manufacturer and voice our concerns, hopefully they will get the message and change their abhorrent behaviour 

A company which explicitly states in it’s privacy statement how the GPS data is used and that it is not stored is about number 5,682 down on my list of things to worry about.  Especially when I carry around in my pocket a device which tracks my every movement and listens to everything I hear or say without me knowing about it, yet I still use that device.  I simply don’t care, because any real expectation of privacy was thrown out the window a decade ago.  YMMV.

You could take a SONOS unit to a remote location in your region, register it as a new system, then bring it home and add the other units. This would thwart the exact GPS data, but your IP address would locate you with reasonable accuracy. Of course you could take the whole system to the remote location for registration, however, you should never add new units, update anything, or access remote music at home because your IP address will become known.

Yes, I would prefer that SONOS not collect this data, but it does not keep me awake at night because the data is already out in the wilderness.