iPhone or iSpy? Feds, Lawyers Tackle Mobile Privacy

[n2doc]

By Brian X. Chen April 12, 2011

If people want to know everything about you, they need look no further than your smartphone. It contains a host of your personal information and leaves a trail of digital footprints everywhere you go.

A proposed class-action lawsuit filed last week alleges that Apple and a handful of app makers are invading user privacy by accessing personal data from customers’ smartphones without permission and sharing it with third-party advertisers.

Concurrently, federal prosecutors in New Jersey are investigating whether several smartphone app makers, including Pandora, are transmitting customer information without proper disclosure. Separately, Congress is mulling legislation aimed at giving consumers the option to tell companies not to track their personal data.

“I’m glad this is coming to light, because I think consumers are waking up to the tracking that’s going on with a computer, but I think there’s an extreme lack of knowledge about the tracking on your iPhone or your iPad,” said Sharon Nissim, consumer privacy counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, which is not involved in the lawsuit.

http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/04/iphone-ispy/