Facebook should probably also get sued... I have trouble to believe that this was not intentional on their part since there is a setting to share or not to share your location.
It doesn't sound simpler or cheaper to me. If you include the price of the phone, it can easily end up being more expensive. And they still have a different cost for people bringing their own phone...
One of the quirks of tech transfer offices is that they have emerged from government agencies and universities because it turns out that making technology and patents freely available doesn't do much for commercial adoption.
It's not... you're probably thinking of the fact that anything NASA releases is not copyrightable. This doesn't imply, however, that they must release everything.
the main reason why I never switched to Chrome is the Google process that is always running whether you are currently using Chrome or not.. but I don't think I had any issues uninstalling it a few years ago