Google Rewards is an Android app that pays you to take surveys. Most of the payouts range from $0.05 all the way up to $1.00, just for taking simple surveys. But as the old adage goes, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

Here's how the story goes: I take my lunch break and walk to a local restaurant, on my way I change my mind and decide that I want Jimmy John's, so I change my path and walk to Jimmy John's, grab my Turkey Tom (no tomato) and then walk back to my office. A few minutes later I get a notification of a new survey available.

I answer the survey and get my few cents reward, but not without getting the feeling that ~~Big Brother~~ Google is up to something. It's known that Google is [trying to improve Google Maps walking paths with it's Virtual Reality MMO Ingress](https://www.quora.com/What-could-be-the-purpose-behind-Ingress-the-game-by-Google?share=1), and this is the same vein. Since I walked to Jimmy Johns an unusual way, Google wants to know that route.

Google says this data is anonymized, which very well may be but in the end Google got the data it wants, another walking route to my local Jimmy John's.