From Safety to Surveillance Life360 markets itself as Family Tracking or Monetized? a family safety app, allowing parents to track their children in real-time. It sounds benevolent on the surface—until you dive into its business model. In 2021, a report from The Markup revealed that Life360 was selling precise location data to dozens of brokers. Including X-Mode, Cuebiq, and SafeGraph.
Unlike anonymized aggregate data, this was granular vietnam phone number list movement data. Tied to unique device IDs that allowed brokers to build persistent behavioral profiles.
The Family Betrayal
Life360 users often consisted of parents trying to the cost of reachable leadsprotect their families—unknowingly turning their loved ones into data points for corporate exploitation. The company defended its practices by pointing to user consent during onboarding, but critics argue the disclosures were buried in legalese and failed to communicate the scope of tracking.
Eventually, amid growing scrutiny, Life360 said it would scale back its data sales. But the case remains a key example of how even family-oriented. Apps can become vectors for mass surveillance.
Lesser-Known Data Brokers: The Invisible Hand Family Tracking or Monetized? Behind the Curtain
The Unnamed Middlemen
While giants like Facebook and Google dominate headlines, hundreds of lesser-known data brokers operate in the shadows, buying and selling phone data scraped from SDKs, telecom logs, and third-party apps.
Companies like Kochava, InMarket, Near mobile database Intelligence, and Gravy Analytics have been found to ingest location data from apps embedded with SDKs. These software kits collect movement data whenever users open or run apps—weather, flashlight, dating, or even period-tracking apps.
This data is then stitched together with mobile ad IDs (MAIDs), timestamps, and device attributes to build ultra-detailed profiles.