The fact that a company knows your location on the Internet is only a fact, unless you are connected through some kind of proxy and block JavaScript code that could bypass it. Despite the fact that you can never hide (with the exception of using TOR or VPN) from the services you come into contact with on the web, it is still useful to know the methods they can use to track your location. This kind of knowledge, ultimately, will allow you to make better decisions about your privacy.
Apps often give you the option to turn off GPS location tracking, but that doesn't mean they won't just peek into your antenna anyway. If your antenna itself is enabled on your phone, expect at least one or two apps to occasionally enable it to get your current location.
An app with a built-in option to "disable GPS tracking" can just ignore it whenever it wants. If you want to be sure not to be tracked, you have to deactivate the antenna itself.
GPS data is sometimes useful for companies trying to understand where their users are going during the day. By understanding the typical schedules and movements of their users, developers can better anticipate their needs in certain contexts.
If your phone contains a SIM card, it is always connected to a cell tower within 45 miles (~70 km). Once an app has that tower's ID number (its cell ID), it already has an idea of where you are in the world. This can be more accurate by querying other data such as signal strength and "round trip time" of data exchanges between the device and the tower. A company could theoretically reduce your location to a radius of 15 meters using this method. This is also true for governments that use IMEI tracking.
If you're using mobile internet through your cellular carrier, you're constantly sending signals to its tower, which makes your search infinitely easier. Disabling your cellular antenna would render your phone unable to send and receive calls or text messages, so there is not much you can do here.
In this particular situation, the only solution would be to get a "dumb" phone that doesn't have any modern apps installed.
What are you doing to protect your location privacy and/or minimize the amount of geographic data you send? Tell us everything in the comments!
