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In “Google Data Collection,” Professor Douglas C. Schmidt, Professor of Computer Science at Vanderbilt University, catalogs how much data Google is collecting about consumers and their most personal habits across all of its products and how that data is being tied together.

A dormant, stationary Android phone (with the Chrome browser active in the background) communicated location information to Google 340 times during a 24-hour period, or at an average of 14 data communications per hour. An idle Android device communicates with Google nearly 10 times more frequently as an Apple device communicates with Apple servers.

A major part of Google’s data collection occurs while a user is not directly engaged with any of its products. The magnitude of such collection is significant, especially on Android mobile devices

This is obscene and I bet it triggers some sort of (completely ineffectual) Congressional investigation. H/T to that nice young man John Gruber.