This will be one of the bigger stories once people really understand what's going on in that expensive smart iPhones they've bought. For while it's bad to have your computer watched and tracked while on line it's nothing like having your phone snooped on and of course since you carry it with you it's also spreading much more information about your movements than your desktop ever could.
It is just unimaginable to me that Apple who touts its security and safety for its computers could allow such gaping privacy violations for phone apps.
And it's not like Apple doesn't know as this is only one of many articles that have addressed this problem. Worse still is that they are partners in crime since they control and sell most of the apps for their popular iPhones through their own store.
So every time you buy an app from Apple and they sell you one that violates even the most generous privacy policy anyone would agree to they’ve profit from these misdeeds. And just like the getaway driver in a robbery they are just as responsible as the robber.
To think that most if not all of the apps you have on your phone are spying on you and sending data that includes such things as your exact location, your age, and even the content of what you're typing to third parties is more than anyone should have to fear.
And again Apple more than any other cell phone company controls their product completely. They write the OS, they control all the manufacturing of the hardware, and of course you must buy the “approved” apps through them. So it's not like they couldn't do something about this. They just chose to look the other way rather than spend the time and money it takes to include real security and protection in the iPhones’ OS. And of course they also want all the apps they can get coded to their phones and they realize that for many of the writers of such apps the real money comes from the information they can steal and sell on the black market.
It’s time for people to wake up and demand that Apple be held accountable for such misdeeds. And if I was a lawyer dealing in class action suits and saw the deep pockets that Apple has I would be salivating with the thought of what an award in such a case could be.
Anyway just remember that when you use any app on the iPhone your security has most likely reach a new low and that while Apple has given you a great phone they’ve most likely also given you the greatest risk to your personal security you might face. And of course you’ve had the pleasure of paying for it while Apple pockets a fortune from apps sales and pleads ignorance.
Shame on you Apple… people have trusted you and you’ve betrayed that trust. And once they wake up to what’s been going on you will think that antenna gate was nothing and a simple little rubber band bumper isn’t going to fix this.
Your Apps Are Watching You
A Journal investigation finds that iPhone and Android apps are breaching the privacy of smartphone users.
Few devices know more personal details about people than the smartphones in their pockets: phone numbers, current location, often the owner's real name—even a unique ID number that can never be changed or turned off.
These phones don't keep secrets. They are sharing this personal data widely and regularly, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.
An examination of 101 popular smartphone "apps"—games and other software applications for iPhone and Android phones—showed that 56 transmitted the phone's unique device ID to other companies without users' awareness or consent. Forty-seven apps transmitted the phone's location in some way. Five sent age, gender and other personal details to outsiders.
The findings reveal the intrusive effort by online-tracking companies to gather personal data about people in order to flesh out detailed dossiers on them.
Among the apps tested, the iPhone apps transmitted more data than the apps on phones using Google Inc.'s Android operating system. Because of the test's size, it's not known if the pattern holds among the hundreds of thousands of apps available.
Apps sharing the most information included TextPlus 4, a popular iPhone app for text messaging. It sent the phone's unique ID number to eight ad companies and the phone's zip code, along with the user's age and gender, to two of them.
WSJ's Julia Angwin explains to Simon Constable how smartphone apps collect and broadcast data about your habits. Many don't have privacy policies and there isn't much you can do about it.
Both the Android and iPhone versions of Pandora, a popular music app, sent age, gender, location and phone identifiers to various ad networks. iPhone and Android versions of a game called Paper Toss—players try to throw paper wads into a trash can—each sent the phone's ID number to at least five ad companies. Grindr, an iPhone app for meeting gay men, sent gender, location and phone ID to three ad companies.
"In the world of mobile, there is no anonymity," says Michael Becker of the Mobile Marketing Association, an industry trade group. A cellphone is "always with us. It's always on."
The Wall Street Journal analyzed 50 popular applications, or "apps," on each of the iPhone and Android operating systems to see what information about the phones, their users and their locations the apps send to themselves and to outsiders.
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iPhone maker Apple Inc. says it reviews each app before offering it to users. Both Apple and Google say they protect users by requiring apps to obtain permission before revealing certain kinds of information, such as location.
"We have created strong privacy protections for our customers, especially regarding location-based data," says Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr. "Privacy and trust are vitally important."
The Journal found that these rules can be skirted. One iPhone app, Pumpkin Maker (a pumpkin-carving game), transmits location to an ad network without asking permission. Apple declines to comment on whether the app violated its rules.
Smartphone users are all but powerless to limit the tracking. With few exceptions, app users can't "opt out" of phone tracking, as is possible, in limited form, on regular computers. On computers it is also possible to block or delete "cookies," which are tiny tracking files. These techniques generally don't work on cellphone apps.
The makers of TextPlus 4, Pandora and Grindr say the data they pass on to outside firms isn't linked to an individual's name. Personal details such as age and gender are volunteered by users, they say. The maker of Pumpkin Maker says he didn't know Apple required apps to seek user approval before transmitting location. The maker of Paper Toss didn't respond to requests for comment.
Many apps don't offer even a basic form of consumer protection: written privacy policies. Forty-five of the 101 apps didn't provide privacy policies on their websites or inside the apps at the time of testing. Neither Apple nor Google requires app privacy policies.
To expose the information being shared by smartphone apps, the Journal designed a system to intercept and record the data they transmit, then decoded the data stream. The research covered 50 iPhone apps and 50 on phones using Google's Android operating system.
The Journal also tested its own iPhone app; it didn't send information to outsiders. The Journal doesn't have an Android phone app.
Among all apps tested, the most widely shared detail was the unique ID number assigned to every phone. It is effectively a "supercookie," says Vishal Gurbuxani, co-founder of Mobclix Inc., an exchange for mobile advertisers.
On iPhones, this number is the "UDID," or Unique Device Identifier. Android IDs go by other names. These IDs are set by phone makers, carriers or makers of the operating system, and typically can't be blocked or deleted.
"The great thing about mobile is you can't clear a UDID like you can a cookie," says Meghan O'Holleran of Traffic Marketplace, an Internet ad network that is expanding into mobile apps. "That's how we track everything."
Ms. O'Holleran says Traffic Marketplace, a unit of Epic Media Group, monitors smartphone users whenever it can. "We watch what apps you download, how frequently you use them, how much time you spend on them, how deep into the app you go," she says. She says the data is aggregated and not linked to an individual.
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