*By Conor White*
Android and iPhone users looking for a way to hide from Google are in luck: it's possible to stop the tech giant's apps, including Google Maps, from tracking a device's whereabouts.
The Associated Press [reported](https://www.apnews.com/828aefab64d4411bac257a07c1af0ecb/AP-Exclusive:-Google-tracks-your-movements,-like-it-or-not) that Google was storing users' location and browsing data even after many people believed they had opted not to share that information by turning off "location history."
By doing some digging, Emily Dreyfuss, a senior writer at Wired, found [a solution](https://www.wired.com/story/google-location-tracking-turn-off/), if you have the patience to navigate the innermost settings pages of your Google apps.
* Open a browser to access your Google account settings.
* The setting is buried under "personal information."
* Go to your activity log and look for "Web and App Activity."
* Turn the setting off.
Dreyfuss said in an interview with Cheddar that users would still be able to use location-based apps like Lyft and Uber, but Google won't be able to track and store information about where the device has been.
"You can still have location on, on your iPhone or your Android, as long as in your Google account settings you have turned off 'Web and Activity Tracking,'" she said.
Recent revelations about the ways in which Facebook, Google, and other technology companies track, store, and share users' personal data has increased consumers' desire to safeguard their privacy. Dreyfuss said that concern led to the latest discovery about Google's methods.
"We all have this sense that we don't know when our location is being used or why," she said. "That's what was so creepy about this, even when we thought that we had turned it off, this is confirmation that we're not as in control as we thought."
For full interview, [click here] (https://cms.cheddar.com/videos/VmlkZW8tMjIwNDk=).
API platform RapidAPI recently became a unicorn with a $1 billion valuation after raising $150 million in a Series D funding round led by Softbank Vision Two Fund. Microsoft's Venture Fund, M12, and Andreessen Horowitz also participated. RapidAPI says it provides the world's largest API hub which enables millions of developers and companies to build software faster. Iddo Gino, founder and CEO of RapidAPI, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Facebook parent Meta officially has changed it’s ticker symbol from ‘FB’ to ‘META’. Paul Meeks, a portfolio manager, Independent Solutions Wealth Management, and a professor of practice in the Baker School of Business at The Citadel, joined Cheddar News to discuss why the tech giant has had to make big changes to its name, its ticker, and its business plans. "When you see what's happening in digital advertising — and there was a slowdown there even before the threat of a recession, which could cause a even more drastic slowdown next year — they had to pivot," he said. Meeks noted he sees Facebook dominating in the metaverse space going forward — whatever that may end up being.
In a recent Bumble survey, more than a third of respondents revealed that they would be willing to date people in other cities. Shan Boodram, a sex and relationships expert for the app, joined Cheddar News to talk about the long-distance dating trend and tips on how to go about taking part. "I think this is the magic of what we experienced over the past couple of years, is that we have already learned the tools necessary to stay connected with people despite not being able to be close to them," she noted. Boodram also pointed to Bumble's travel mode and using video conferencing in order to ease into such relationships.
On this episode of Cheddar Innovates: CEO of Achieve Life Sciences discusses a new plant-based compound that's being used to fight nicotine addiction; President & CEO OF DiaMedica Therapeutics explains a new ischemic stroke treatment option that expands the window for effective therapy for stroke patients; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'Asteroid Rush.'
