Which mobile phone maker do you have more faith in? Which telco?
Apple have done work, and published tools for researchers, to make it so they can't "modify it in secret". The tools for security research community help verify that and "keep them honest". For instance, this is partly what the prompts about new devices or log in on other devices are about, there's a key exchange happening, and you get told. You can also exchange keys with Messages contacts to verify you're talking to them. You can turn on iCloud Advanced Security and Apple don't get even your backup keys. Also see the new Lockdown Mode.
Granted, Apple can change their minds and become anti-privacy or pro data-brokers and ad-tech, but some of these proofs would break so folks would know.
Anyway, if the government wants to know where you are, they can just ask the Chinese who've been watching Americans' cell phone identifiers move around.
In seriousness, the telcos already sell* this position data to data-brokers and law enforcement have portals to just watch you scurry around, even without a warrant.
* Sometimes telcos share your location data in ways that aren't "selling" so they can say they don't sell it. But the data goes and telcos derive value in exchange.
Just because someone doesn't trust Apple to build a worldwide live location tracking system doesn't mean they don't want someone else to build a worldwide location tracking system. There's an inherent risk to worldwide location tracking systems and while I think the genie is out of the bottle now, I would prefer there not to be a worldwide location tracking network at all.
Airtags have become a commodity at this point and despite attempts to prevent this, criminals are already using them to follow potential victims to their homes. I know GPS trackers and a bunch of different find-my style networks existed long before Apple brought the airtag to market, but those didn't turn up in purses and cars quite as often as Airtags now do.
Apple tries their best to make this thing secure and safe, but there's only so much safety they can add before the devices become useless.
Apple have done work, and published tools for researchers, to make it so they can't "modify it in secret". The tools for security research community help verify that and "keep them honest". For instance, this is partly what the prompts about new devices or log in on other devices are about, there's a key exchange happening, and you get told. You can also exchange keys with Messages contacts to verify you're talking to them. You can turn on iCloud Advanced Security and Apple don't get even your backup keys. Also see the new Lockdown Mode.
Granted, Apple can change their minds and become anti-privacy or pro data-brokers and ad-tech, but some of these proofs would break so folks would know.
Anyway, if the government wants to know where you are, they can just ask the Chinese who've been watching Americans' cell phone identifiers move around.
In seriousness, the telcos already sell* this position data to data-brokers and law enforcement have portals to just watch you scurry around, even without a warrant.
* Sometimes telcos share your location data in ways that aren't "selling" so they can say they don't sell it. But the data goes and telcos derive value in exchange.