Press, please impress.

Last December, the New York Times shone a light on the pervasive and invasive nature of smartphone tracking in place today. “Every minute of every day,” the newspaper reported, “everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies—largely unregulated, little scrutinized—are logging the movements of tens of millions of people with mobile phones and storing the information in gigantic data files.”

Heat maps that show cellphone location data in the U.S. paint a disturbing picture of the potential spread of coronavirus as the country grapples with lockdown meaures and tries to stem the virus’ tide.

Despite advice from the U.S. government amid the COVID-19 pandemic, plenty of Americans are still traveling. To curb the spread of infection, citizens have been told to keep traveling to a minimum.

President Trump urged Americans on March 16 to avoid gatherings of 10 or more people in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

As countries around the world look for ways to track coronavirus infections using people’s personal smartphones, measures President Trump says the U.S. is also considering, privacy experts and technologists warn that the U.S. government faces an uphill battle to put such surveillance into practice.

Our interview with Josh Anton, CEO of X-Mode, takes up the state of location, what marketers need to look for in a data partner and, of course, privacy.

Our interview with Josh Anton, CEO of X-Mode, takes up the state of location, what marketers need to look for in a data partner and, of course, privacy.

X-Mode is working with app developers and data buyers to offer the highest quality data that strives to meet all current regulatory standards including the GDPR and CCPA.

Location Data Startup Officially Launches, Grows Globally Through Million-Dollar Seed Round

X Mode Founder and CEO Josh Anton came up with the idea for the app “Drunk Mode” after getting drunk dialed during his junior year at the University of Virginia.

The location data industry is poised for vast changes over the next year and decade. Increasing privacy regulation and better understanding of data quality are indicative of the shift to come – one that’s eerily similar to what happened during the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008.