Location Privacy: Browser Extensions vs. Weather Apps — What's Actually Happening to Your Data

Location data is one of the most valuable and most harvested types of personal data. Weather apps, in particular, are among the worst offenders. Here's the distinction between how browser-based weather tools and mobile weather apps handle your location — and why it matters.

How Mobile Weather Apps Use Location

Mobile weather apps request "location permission" — often "Allow all the time" rather than "only while using the app." This gives the app continuous access to your GPS position.

The business model for most free weather apps: the weather data is the product, but the revenue comes from selling or licensing your location data to data brokers, advertisers, and analytics companies. Your precise, timestamped location data is extremely valuable.

This isn't speculation — several major weather apps have been caught doing this:

• The Weather Channel (TWC): settled with the FTC over allegations that it used location data for advertising purposes without disclosure
• AccuWeather: caught sending precise location data to a monetization firm even when users had disabled location sharing
• Weather Underground: received similar scrutiny

The apps often have vague privacy policies that permit "sharing with partners" — a euphemism for selling location data.

How Browser Location Permission Works

When a browser extension like Weather & Clock Dashboard requests location, it uses the browser's location API (navigator.geolocation). This is structurally different:

1. The permission is browser-controlled, not OS-controlled: The browser mediates access. You can revoke it per-site/per-extension in browser settings.

2. It's session-based: The extension gets location when you open a new tab — not continuously in the background.

3. The extension code is auditable: Weather & Clock Dashboard is MIT licensed and open source. You can verify that it sends your location to a weather API and nothing else. There's no backend server collecting your data.

4. No account, no profile: Unlike weather apps that create accounts and build user profiles, a new tab extension with no account can't create a persistent record of your locations over time.

How to Check What Any Extension Does With Location

For any Firefox extension:

1. Open about:addons
2. Click the extension → "Permissions" — does it request location?
3. Click through to the extension's AMO listing → check if it's open source
4. If open source: read the relevant code (for a weather extension, look for navigator.geolocation and the fetch call after it)

For Weather & Clock Dashboard specifically: GitHub source. The location code calls navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(), then sends coordinates to a weather API. That's the entire location usage.

The Practical Recommendation

If you want weather in your browser:

• Use a browser-based new tab extension rather than keeping a weather app tab open
• Choose open source over closed source
• Verify the permissions are minimal (location + tabs, not <all_urls>)

If you use a mobile weather app:

• Set it to "Only while using" for location (not "Always")
• Consider wttr.in for a no-account, IP-based forecast
• Or use your phone's built-in weather app (Apple Weather and Google Weather handle this better than third-party apps)