Interestingly it used to be that someone would (for free and without solicitation) drop a book on my doorstep that contained a list of thousands of people's names along with their home address and telephone number. The last time I remember this happening was only 10 years ago. It's fascinating how our threat models regarding privacy have apparently changed so significantly.
If I recall correctly, the phone books even included instructions on them of how to opt out. And given that they were broadly distributed it was very apparent to people that opting out was necessary if they were worried about being stalked, etc.
I didn’t act as if one couldn’t opt out. That’s actually in line with my point. The behavior was opt-out, and from what I remember hearing you actually had to pay in order to do so.
My point is that it used to be well-accepted that one’s home address and telephone number were explicitly public and indexed for easy access by anyone (at least anyone within the regional phone book’s coverage area). Now we get spooked that someone could obtain a home address using a fairly convoluted, difficult to target, and presumably expensive method involving the target’s smartphone attempting to connect to a wireless network and a large commercial database of wireless network locations.
I’m not even making judgements about this. I’m truly fascinated at how privacy threat models can vary so much from person to person and over time.
tshaddox didn't say anything to imply that people couldn't opt out, so I think you're beating a strawman. They pointed out the seeming change in expectations in this thread (where SSID location mapping collection being opt-out is outrage) vs the phone book (which, sensitive PII was broadly shared by a profit-motivated entity that had no relationship with you and you have to opt out to not be included).
If anything, SSID location is generally less sensitive than your name + phone number + city.
