Source: Bloomberg (paywall)
Law enforcement can now purchase granular location tracking on hundreds of millions of phones through Penlink's Webloc technology by buying data that game publishers already collect through in-app ads—bypassing warrant requirements entirely. This transforms casual mobile gaming into a mass surveillance infrastructure. The consent players give for "personalized advertising" becomes a backdoor for warrantless tracking by police. The mechanism exploits the legal gray zone between private data sales and government surveillance, making every ad-supported game a potential source of player movement data.