This is as bad as Zebras not understanding quadratic equasions. Do they teach their young nothing?
notabot
Surgery, especially on animals.
In any other context, someone cutting you open, slicing bits out or rearranging them, them sewing you shut would be considered horrific, but we do it because we know that the short term suffering out weighs the long term harm of not doing it. When you choose it for yourself it might not be too 'evil', but an animal would not understand, even if you know it will mean they get to live a long, happy life, free of the pain and suffering that issue would otherwise cause.
Yes, the IMEI uniquly identifies the phone itself, so if the GSM radio is on, the network can monitor it's approximate location.
There's a couple of caveats: IMEI cloning is possible, but unlikely, and he accuracy of the triangulation will depend on a lot of factors including how far apart the towers are and what sort of obstructions there are between you and the towers. My understanding is that it is done by comparing your signal strength at each of the towers as a proxy for distance. If there's a large obstruction that reduces your signal to a tower it could throw those measurements off. They'll know you're in the area, but not exactly where.
While there's probably no global solution, personally I use a QR Code reader that doesn't actually use the URL, but just displays it and lets me copy it to the clipboard. That way I can inspect it, and if it doesn't look right, ignore it.