Uneasy Silence reports Apple Secretly Tracking iPhone IMEI and Usage. It seems when the Stocks and Weather widgets send a request to Apple to get the info they want to display, they include the unique identifier for the iPhone. This theoretically allows them to track when you use these apps and what info you're interested in (companies, locations). Nefarious or not, it seems a little rude. More so, because if you remove the id from the request, it stops working.
3 comments:
I am actually typing this from my iPhone :)
You do not seem to like it when mobile app gathers your private info : phone, usage, voice, etc. Do you want to know and to have the ability to turn this on/off?
It is a professional question :)
I don't. I expect the phone company to keep records of my calls. I don't expect my phone's manufacturer to do so (I don't know if Apple does this, I doubt it). I don't expect either the phone company or manufacturer to record my conversations (though I know the NSA does).
When checking stock prices, I don't expect the server to log my request by IP address though I know it's possible and they probably do. I'm ok with it for a short time to allow for diagnosing problems (maybe a week, or up to a month) but not for all time and not for sale to 3rd parties to offer me more appropriate products. Maybe the way to think of it is it's ok if it stays in the IT department but it shouldn't go further.
I also don't expect them to gather things that are unnecessary to complete the service. Apple doesn't need my hardware ID to tell me stock quotes or the weather for a zip code. I'm ok with them collecting things like how many requests for zip code 12345 they go to optimize their service, but they don't need my ID except for my ip address and then only to send the response.
If a company does collect info, I'd like to be told it. And I'd really prefer to be told in English and not legalese. and changing a policy I agree to without notice is not right. I don't need to be told individually (via email), a link on the site saying we've updated our policies here is fine.
Tthanks, this is very helpful. Perhaps, Apple used device info for routing purposes or some such. when it comes to mobile clients some APIs allow access to phone or device info. It seems application developers should be careful about using those.
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