Gaia GPS adds "feature" that opts all users into social media profile and location/activity sharing

Gaia GPS, a backcountry navigation app owned by Outside Inc., pushed an update in August 2024 that automatically created public social media profiles on OutsideOnline.com for every user who logged in. The update set "Profile Privacy" to "Public" and "Activity Privacy" to "Everyone" by default, broadcasting users' GPS tracks, routes, and timing information to anyone on the internet without requiring explicit consent. Users who chose Gaia GPS specifically because it was a private mapping tool, not a social network, discovered the change through community forums and launched widespread backlash across hiking, backpacking, and out through community forums and launched widespread backlash across hiking, backpacking, and outdoor recreation communities.

Background

Outside Inc. (formerly Pocket Outdoor Media) acquired Gaia GPS on February 22, 2021, as part of a venture-backed consolidation of outdoor media and technology brands. The deal, funded by a $150 million Series B round from Sequoia Heritage and other investors, also included Outside magazine, Outside TV, athleteReg, and Peloton magazine. CEO Robin Thurston subsequently acquired Trailforks, Pinkbike, CyclingTips, and MapMyFitness, assembling a portfolio of over 30 outdoor brands reaching 38 million people monthly.

Before the acquisition, Gaia GPS operated as a standalone backcountry navigation tool used by hikers, off-roaders, search and rescue teams, and wildland firefighters for its USGS topographic maps, Forest Service road layers, and avalanche forecasts. The app had no social media features and limited sharing functionality, which was part of its appeal to users who valued privacy.

In late August 2024, Outside Inc. updated its privacy settings to integrate data sharing across the Outside network, including Gaia GPS, Trailforks, and AthleteReg. On August 27, 2024, the company published a press release titled "Outside Launches Integrated Social Platform to Inspire More Adventure," in which Thurston described the platform as "a culmination of all the brands we've brought together so that our users can consume the digital content that inspires them, activate through our mapping and event technology, and finally, celebrate their achievements with a community of outdoor enthusiasts."

Public-by-default privacy settings

When Gaia GPS users updated to version 2024.7 in late August 2024, the app presented a modal screen requiring acceptance of updated terms of service and privacy policies. Accepting the terms automatically generated a unified social media profile on OutsideOnline.com, even for users who had never visited the site. The system set two default privacy configurations: "Profile Privacy" to "Public" and "Activity Privacy" to "Everyone."

Gaia GPS's own help center confirms the defaults: "Once you have accepted the privacy modal, your default setting will be PUBLIC. The privacy of your previously recorded tracks will retain their prior privacy settings but any new tracks will default to public unless you change your privacy settings." Outside's cross-platform privacy documentation further states: "If you are a NEW user, your default privacy settings will be set to PUBLIC."

The privacy settings in the Outside profile are globally connected with Gaia GPS and Trailforks. Changes made in the Outside profile propagate to both platforms. A new "Activity Feed" launched in September 2024 displays users' GPS tracks, including exact routes, locations, and timestamps, to anyone viewing the feed.

To opt out, users must find and change settings across platform-specific menus: on iOS, Settings > Account > Privacy and Default Visibility; on Android, Settings > Account > Privacy Controls; on the web, Profile page > Edit Outside Profile > Manage Privacy Settings. The process is further complicated by the split between the Gaia GPS app and the OutsideOnline.com account page, meaning some settings must be changed in one location and others in another.

Outside's response

On August 29, 2024, an Outside employee posting as moderator u/offroadee on the r/GaiaGPS subreddit published a thread titled "Correcting some confusion around New Default Privacy Settings." The representative stated: "With these new settings, you can now adjust the default privacy selection that's applied when you save a new track. However, please note that changing these default settings DOES NOT affect any of your existing data. All your existing map data will retain its current privacy settings, so nothing will suddenly become public. For any track to become public, you'll need to manually save it with the 'Everyone' privacy setting."

The post was heavily downvoted by the community. Users responded that the statement appeared false or that the app was so unclear that users could not determine what they were agreeing to. One user replied: "Not warning people that their settings went auto public is not good practice when the update applies. I don't want my tracks, my profile or any of my info going public because you want to expand your data." The representative's claim that tracks would not "suddenly become public" was contradicted by Gaia GPS's own help center documentation, which states that new tracks default to public after accepting the privacy modal.

Outside Inc. did not issue a standalone statement addressing the privacy backlash. The company's only public communication about the feature was the August 27 press release promoting the social platform launch.

Privacy setting resets

Beyond the initial public defaults, users reported that privacy settings failed to persist after being changed. On August 30, 2024, a user on r/GaiaGPS reported: "After one day my Outside privacy settings reverted from private to public for my profile and all Gaia activity!" On October 2, 2024, a user on Backcountry Post reported that after downloading a software update, their track was automatically set to share with "everyone" rather than remaining private.

The problem continued into 2025. In July 2025, a user reported: "They reset the account settings 'accidentally' to public all the time. You need to check every time you save a track." In September 2025, users on Backpacking Light forums reported that tracks they had recorded and set to private were appearing publicly under generated pseudonym accounts, with original track names intact.

As of February 2026, the public-by-default architecture remains in place. Gaia GPS's profile settings help page still states: "The Outside profile and activity feed privacy settings will apply to recorded Gaia GPS tracks."

Safety precedents

In January 2018, Australian researcher Nathan Ruser discovered that Strava's Global Heatmap, built from over 3 trillion GPS data points from 27 million users, exposed the locations and internal perimeters of classified military installations worldwide. The heatmap revealed U.S. Army bases in Afghanistan and Syria, a French military base in Niger, and patrol routes around Area 51. The Pentagon subsequently banned deployed personnel from using geolocation features on fitness trackers. Privacy International noted that the core problem was identical to what Gaia GPS users now face: "the interface design is confusing and complex, and users do not always know to activate it or how to use the app's privacy settings."

In October 2024, a Le Monde investigation found that public fitness app data generated by bodyguards effectively broadcast the locations of U.S. President Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, Emmanuel Macron, and Vladimir Putin.

For everyday users, the risks are more personal. Publicly shared GPS tracks reveal home addresses (where tracks start and end), daily routines, workplace locations, and periods when a residence is unattended. Users on outdoor forums identified specific dangers: someone who has relocated due to abuse, stalking, or threats could have their new location exposed by a single GPS track shared publicly without their knowledge.

Consumer response

The earliest reports of the privacy defaults appeared on August 26, 2024, when a user on r/GaiaGPS warned: "If you tap through these accepting the defaults (like many of us will), you will end up with a public profile, and a default privacy setting that allows 'Everyone' to see all activities." By August 29, the warning had spread across r/Ultralight, r/Thruhiking, r/PacificCrestTrail, and r/caving.

A common theme across the backlash was that Gaia GPS had been purchased as a private mapping tool, not a social network. Users on forums drew a distinction between Strava, which launched as a social fitness platform with sharing as a core feature, and Gaia GPS, which Outside Inc. had transformed into a public-sharing platform after the acquisition without keeping users informed about how their data would be used.

Several users announced they were canceling subscriptions and migrating to CalTopo, which defaults to private sharing. CalTopo's sharing model uses four visibility levels (Public, URL, Secret, and Private), with "URL" as the default, meaning maps are not indexed by search engines or displayed in public feeds.

In October 2025, a user reported filing a Data Subject Request under New Hampshire's privacy law (NH RSA 507-H:4) to extract their data from Outside Inc., stating that the company failed to deliver the data within the legally mandated timeframe.

No formal Federal Trade Commission complaints, state attorney general investigations, or regulatory actions specifically targeting Outside Inc. for the Gaia GPS privacy defaults have been publicly documented as of March 2026. Major tech journalism outlets including The Verge, Ars Technica, and Wired did not cover the incident; reporting was confined to outdoor blogs and community forums.