A Reality Check on Righteous Privacy Indignation

"According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, some of my iPhone apps are spying on me. They apparently know when I use them, my location, my age and my gender. Then they send it all to marketing companies. This wouldn't happen if we'd all pay full price for everything we use and download. But given the chance, despite the anger over this violation of privacy, how many would really do that?

"When I first heard about The Wall Street Journal's expose article last weekend, titled "Your Apps Are Watching You," I was outraged: My iPhone apps where sending my iPhone 4's Unique Device Identifier (UDID) to marketing companies? They were tracking my location and sharing it with advertising networks? They were sharing my age and gender and ZIP code? And when I spent a certain amount of time navigating some apps, they were tattling on me -- communicating how much time I spent with them, how deep into the app I delved? And after they sent this off willy nilly to various marketing companies, the marketing companies built profiles and judged me, then slapped me into a category to sell to advertisers?!"

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• Why Governments Should Use Open Source Licensing(Dec 24, 2010)
• Editor's Note: If I Wanted to Be Naked I'd Be Naked(Dec 17, 2010)
• Commerce Dept. Calls for Privacy Bill of Rights(Dec 17, 2010)
• Facebook Tracks and Traces Everyone: Like This!(Dec 16, 2010)
• EFF Location Privacy Victory at Third Circuit Stands, With Implications Far Beyond Your Cell Phone(Dec 16, 2010)
• House Panel Mulls 'Do-Not-Track' Online Privacy Bill(Dec 03, 2010)
• Hiding Online Footprints(Dec 01, 2010)