Privacy Change: Apple Knows Where Your Phone Is And Is Telling People
By Meg Marco on June 21, 2010 9:50 PM
Apple updated its privacy policy today, with an important, and dare we say creepy new paragraph about location information. If you agree to the changes, (which you must do in order to download anything via the iTunes store) you agree to let Apple collect store and share "precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device."
Apple says that the data is "collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you," but for some reason we don't find this very comforting at all. There appears to be no way to opt-out of this data collection without giving up the ability to download apps.
Share
Comments
I have an Apple computer and
I have an Apple computer and I don't care if Apple knows where it is located but this new policy permanently shelves my plans to purchase an iPad.
Now that sucks. And I was
Now that sucks. And I was saving up to buy one too.
Location Based Services
There is a whole class of mobile software applications called Location Based Services. These have to know where you are in order to work. A simple example is google maps on my phone: when I call up directions from my current location to a destination, google maps has to know where I am to provide me this information.
Anyone with a cell phone can be located within a relatively small area. So, technologically, I don't see what is new with this. The only new thing is that Apple is alerting customers to a feature they were likely already using, I guess to CYA.
Edit: This type of feature is already inherently on all mobile platforms. And the future is that all carriers and mobile providers are going to start using it; the ad revenue possibilities are too compelling not to.
So, whether or not you buy an iPad, you either already are, or will have to deal with this dilemna.
They're selling the
They're selling the information, keto. That is not necessary to make your maps work.
Any LBS app on an iPhone is
Any LBS app provider that has an app on an iPhone is paying apple to use an application interface that gives them access to your location data. So, whether directly, or indirectly, your location data has been on the auction block for a while.
Not mine...I don't get lost.
Not mine...I don't get lost. And I don't use applications for their cutesy factor. Nor do I need advertisements tailor made for where I'm standing right now...which is what Apple (and Google) is planning (and is why I have neither iPhone nor Android phone).
I think alot of people share
I think alot of people share your attitude.
But, for me, I assume my cell phone carrier can sell my location information, or give it to the government, so I don't see how an iPad could further compromise my privacy.
Also, I think in the long run, people are being conditioned to have more relaxed standards of privacy.
By the time the conditioning
By the time the conditioning takes, I'll be dead.
It took me a while to get numb about ubiquitous GPS
Well do I recall the early days of my first cell phone, emergencies only, sitting in the glove compartment-- ah, nostalgia. Then it was carried around, and then it was on while out of the house but off at home. And sometimes I'd forget it or just leave it home. Separation of church and state. Now it's on most of the time, and so as long as it's co-located with my physical person, the Great Googly Moogly Grid knows where I am. My friends and I used to joke about this cosmic check-in whenever we used an ATM a couple decades ago, then we got over it.
But I'm still not an early adopter. I want something useful, not just cool, in exchange for reporting to the system exactly where I am.
Now pardon me while I find one of the old education threads. I just stumbled onto something at NewBlackMan that added to my reading list.