Can you tell if someone stops sharing their location?

How can I tell if someone stopped sharing their location with me on Google Maps?

There is a lot of discussion out there about ways to find who is tracking us and where they are, such as how apps like Onavo work, or even Android spyware that is used to show you what device your friends are using.

A common response that people have (including from other StackExchange communities) is: What if this is just a feature Google made? I know it can be annoying feature, but I don't think you can really take anything for granted if you use Google's services in conjunction with data from friends or their apps. I don't think there's anything really nefarious about it and it could turn into a very useful feature one day.

Why might Google do this? To give Google maps more people on the map than just users in your region. It makes it a whole lot easier for companies to get their stores and restaurants on your personal map and makes it easier for businesses to find more consumers by searching where they are based on the store location they gave. They want to keep increasing their revenue.

If you used to be able to share your location when you were getting directions and would no longer be able to, then I hope the next time you're prompted to allow Location tracking via your phone, you find out they aren't prompting you because of an update. You've already said in another answer that you trust Google. Well then why are you doing any location based searches? If you can trust Google enough not to abuse your data, why are you afraid to? As a matter of fact I'd argue that you probably shouldn't trust Google enough to share your location with their Maps/Play service, they can't possibly be as trustworthy as they claim. Can they? The best way to find out if they're sharing your information is to try it. Log out of Google, then go back in and then search for something that uses the service. Your location should now be visible to you (it does by default with some things, eg Maps or Play), and if it is then they might be passing it on. You can tell if it was ever shared by the icon being green, grey or red.

If this is not happening, then you can assume they aren't sharing your location with them at this time.

What does it mean when someone's location is grey on Google Maps?

As my location changes from time to time, a lot of things change in my Google Maps app.

When I get off a bus or step into a store, my location changes and this causes a whole series of things to happen on the phone. For example, now the phone is searching for stores near me, my music is automatically paused, any notifications that are about to come through are paused, the home screen shows my new location, and the phone starts searching for Google Now cards near me.

It takes several seconds for all of this to occur, so why would my location show up as grey if it's only been a few seconds since my location changed? Your location can be greyed out when a location update is in the process of being received by the app. There are three options to receiving location updates: Manual: The user controls when he/she will be updated;. Automatic: Every once in a while the device requests a location update. The device gets one update if the GPS receiver knows the device's last known location. If the GPS receiver is unsure, it may ask multiple times to get more information from the GPS satellite, before finally obtaining a location fix;
Background: The device gets location updates even when not interacting with the user. Depending on which mode you chose, your location might be greyed out when your location changes. For example, automatic is most likely the case as an automatic update is triggered by an NTP Server query (every 15 mins) and the phone needs to determine the new location. This may take some time to set up and get things rolling. As the device has to determine its current location, it will first turn off the GPS and ask for a better location to know where to go.

You can also set when location is turned on manually, which will probably take less time than turning off your phone and asking for a location update. However, from the "grey out" behaviour, we can't draw conclusions. If the behaviour is related to automatic updates, we can assume that there is a device setting to keep background queries to a minimum.