Use of Location Information

Here, please find the details on how we use the location information of our customers.

Use of Location Information

When using location information

LY Corporation uses the acquired location information to provide the Services*1 to study improvements and new Services, and to investigate and analyze the usage of the Services.

     

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There may be instances where LY Corporation acquires and uses the following location information from applications that have been allowed to send location information using the device's functions.

  • GPS location information
  • Information on Wi-Fi access points and signal strength around the device
  • Identification information of the connected Bluetooth-enabled device and information on signal strength around the device (if the user is not connected to a Bluetooth-enabled device, the identification information will not be used)

In addition to the location information described above, the following information may be used as supplementary information to improve accuracy.

  • Information on address related to stores in which offline payments were made
  • Information of device sensors (such as speed and direction of a device’s movement)

In addition to such location information, there are instances where the customers’ IP addresses that are sent in relation to the use of services, etc., such as Yahoo! JAPAN Search, will be used to infer the sources of access and provide personalized information to the customers and instances where such information will be provided to Partners (including companies located overseas such as in South Korea and the US; the same applies hereafter. For details on countries to which information is provided) to the extent of the Privacy Policy. In addition, there are instances where Partners that receive IP addresses to the extent of the Privacy Policy will similarly infer the region of the source of access. Please refer to IP Addresses for a detailed explanation on IP addresses. Furthermore, please refer to Yahoo! JAPAN’s search services and search-linked ad transmission system and the handling of search-linked data with respect to the access by NAVER Corporation.

*1 “Services” means all services including products, apps, services, and websites, provided by LY Corporation. Furthermore, the Services include services, products, advertisements, and contents for partners*2 and for customers other than the customer themselves.
*2 “Partner” means a group company (which means a subsidiary or affiliate of LY Corporation, and the definition includes subsidiaries and affiliates located outside of Japan, in accordance with the “Regulation on Terminology, Forms, and Preparation Methods of Financial Statements” of Japan) and information provider, advertiser, ad distributor, and other partner.


Specific use cases

Examples of how our apps use location information

In addition to cases where location information is essential for providing the Services, we will use location information in order to provide customers with more comfortable services. Please see below for specific examples of use by applications.

     

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Communication App LINE

Where you are right now, where you are meeting, or where you want to go can be shared with friends in the chat room. In addition, information that is highly relevant to the customer’s location, such as information and coupons regarding facilities and attractions, will be transmitted through the LINE official account.

Display of advertisements

In order to display appropriate advertisements that meet the needs of individual customers, LY Corporation uses information on customer's area of domicile, gender, month and year of birth, etc. Also, LY Corporation analyzes customers' use history of the Services and information provided, and uses the information on customers' interest estimated by LY Corporation using its own standards.

     

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The customers' use history of Services include information such as search key words, browsed webpages, apps used, items purchased, location information, etc. In addition, LY Corporation may use information from multiple environments (devices, apps, browsers, etc.).

Setting of location information

Depending on their preferences, customers can change the setting of their location information. For details, please refer to the following:

     

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Customers using communication app LINE-related services

Please turn on/off the use of location information for the communication app LINE and other LINE-related services, such as for the provision of congestion information and optimization of advertisement contents, from [Settings]>[Privacy]>[Provide usage data]>[Share location with LINE]. If access to location services is permitted for communication app LINE in the device’s settings, the function of each service using location services of the device can be used even if the settings in the communication app LINE is turned off. If location information will be acquired for each service, they will be acquired by an express operation by the user.

If acquiring location information is not permitted for the communication app LINE in the device’s settings, location information cannot be acquired or sent from the device even if the settings in the communication app LINE is turned on. However, location information using registered information and service usage status, as well as network connection information may be estimated regardless of the device’s settings.