Agreed, the article is lacking. In some other threads it's come out that this is a GPS sync feature to speed up the time it takes for GPS to get locks. A useful feature to be sure, but IMHO not one that has to be implemented in such a user disrespecting way. It should be a toggleable switch, preferably opt-in. It wouldn't be hard to throw up a dialog on first GPS access that lets the user opt in. As implemented where the user is utterly powerless to stop it, it's an egregious privacy violation.