Google Maps has offered its “Popular Times” feature for about a year now, allowing users to gauge how busy a business will be at certain times of the day based on past history.

Now, Google is making the feature a bit more useful — and creepy — by showing real-time stats using location data taken from people’s mobile devices.

“Just in time for the Black Friday swarms, we’re adding a real-time look at how crowded a place is right now, to help you decide where and when to go,” Jamie Aspinall, a product manager at Google, wrote in a blog post. “Whether you’re rushing to pick up a last minute gift or seeking a lively bar for some festive spirit, check Popular Times for a sneak preview of what to expect when you arrive.”

The new feature uses anonymized information from the Google Maps app that tracks where a device is located. More specifically, Google’s location data code tracks when users enter a predefined geographical boundary, for example a specific address or GPS location, and when they leave. Since Google Maps is one of the most popular map tools around, this effectively means that Google knows roughly where you are at all times.

Of course, if the idea of having Google’s eye of Sauron following you everywhere makes you feel a bit uneasy, you could always turn off your Google location history and your device’s location data. But this will also lock you out of a number of useful features, such as GPS and all of those handy Google Now cards.

Aspinall noted in his post that Google Maps offers couple of other features to help users navigate the holiday shopping crowds besides stalking where users are at any given moment. This includes another Popular Times feature that provides an estimate for how long people tend to stay at that location. This can be helpful for determining how long it might take to wait for a table at a restaurant or the amount of time you might spend standing in line at the register.

And as always, Google offers information that doesn’t require creeping on your phone’s GPS, such as a business’ posted open hours.

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