For those not familiar with the backstory.... Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published a story titled: Your Apps Are Watching You. The story covers 101 iPhone/Android apps and goes into some detail on how these apps may be mining your personal information:
http://blogs.wsj.com/wtk-mobile/
(Click on individual apps at that page to see more detailed information for each app.)
I noticed that Angry Birds (paid, not lite) is one of the few apps tested that mines Contacts information.
I'm generally not paranoid about such matters, but touching the Contacts information seems a bit out of line. I understand mining a variety of other data to be used in aggregate for improving gameplay, adding features, etc. But Contacts?!?
I've written Rovio to ask them to clarify. But perhaps someone here knows/understands what is going on?
Mark
EDIT: Rovio has responded. See message #29.
http://blogs.wsj.com/wtk-mobile/
(Click on individual apps at that page to see more detailed information for each app.)
I noticed that Angry Birds (paid, not lite) is one of the few apps tested that mines Contacts information.
I'm generally not paranoid about such matters, but touching the Contacts information seems a bit out of line. I understand mining a variety of other data to be used in aggregate for improving gameplay, adding features, etc. But Contacts?!?
I've written Rovio to ask them to clarify. But perhaps someone here knows/understands what is going on?
Mark
EDIT: Rovio has responded. See message #29.
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