So let me get this straight...you'd be proud that you don't have location based services on wireless handsets for emergency services? E911 has been in use in the US for years, and its capabilities and allowed uses are well known. Sorry, but it has nothing to do with "Big Brother". Unfortunately, you seem to not be aware of services in your own country:
E112 is a location-enhanced version of 112. The telecom operator transmits the location information to the emergency centre. The EU Directive E112 (2003) requires mobile phone networks to provide emergency services with whatever information they have about the location a mobile call was made. This directive is based on the FCC's Enhanced 911 ruling in 2001.
The new eCall project for automated emergency calls from cars is based on E112.
Whoops. See, the US's E911 implementation is so comprehensive and well done from a technical and procedural perspective that the EU chose to base its location-enhanced emergency services and public safety call center functionality on it.
Actually, there's no "woops" there at all. Where do you see "GPS" in that? A "cell phone tower" is far from your GPS-position. The "cell phone provider" does not have access to people's exact whereabouts made with GPS. Please do some better research before you begin to go "woops". The reason of course being, that here the potential to be misused outweighed the benefits.
As for location-based services on the iPhone, CoreLocation gives you the explicit choice to grant such access to your location to an application, or not.
I don't care if the "user has to give explicit choice to grant" such a thing. As an analogy, som people also jump - with eyes open - into pyramid schemes. It's not an argument that because people can choose to click "yes" or "no", then everything is all right. See how long you can take that argument. If you can use it with everything, then fine. If you at some point hit a wall where you think it can't be used, then your argument is invalid. And you will hit that wall.
Based on the application provider, their stated privacy policy which, I'll point out, we have NO IDEA what AOL's is with respect to this application, considering the application isn't even available yet
As I have said numerous times: It's the logging I'm worried about, the potential of abuse and whether it will be sold on to advertisers.
and other factors, you can make a decision as to whether to grant such access.
As I've said before, that argument doesn't fly.
And uh, that last statement isn't "patriotic" or "flag waving", not is it a strawman.
It certainly is. It's a strawman (and an ad hominem).
It's "patriotic" and "flag waving", because you use the same rhetoric and the same argument, that if one is a bit worried about the potential of abuse of something like this, all of sudden one is declared one of the "tin-foil"-crowd, because one must apparently be one of them if one doesn't trust big corporations and a cheating, lying government with information such as that.
It reminds me too much of the flag waving "patriots" when Iraq began. You know, the ones that trusted the government on everything, including the WMD, and if people asked for proof, they too were tin-foil hat wearing idjits.
Any financial institution globally "could" be (and, frankly, <i>is</i>, by necessity) "tracking" your transactions.
Yes, they are. And many are selling the information as well. The thing is, that this has the potntial to go much, much further. And it's not just transactions, it's has the potntial to place you physically at any given time.
And since that is my worry, not whether I say, am logged as "phone-number xxxx is listening to that channel", but actually surveil me, I'm worried. You pretending I'm saying I have some against any form of logging, any form of "file" is indeed a strawman, as I never said any such thing.
It's all about the trust relationship the consumer has with the provider of a product or service.
Yes it is. And as I have stated, I don't trust _anyone_ to have access to my exact position (over time).
You let your financial institution (credit/debit card provider or equivalent, etc.) "track" your activity, in exchange for the convenience of the services.
Yes, but as I have pointed out, you're making a strawman.
I'm not letting my bank know my physical whereabouts, nor would I allow my bank to even ask what I do on, say, weekends. A future employer aren't even allowed to ask those questions by law.
Of course, "track" is a loaded word here. It's logged because it has to be.
Yes, at first. For the session? I could live with that. For five years? Never.
We don't know whether AOL is logging location information, because the application hasn't even shipped yet, and we have no access to any privacy statement, nor do we even know if there will be one. Yet you seem to be jumping to the worst possible conclusions. This doesn't have anything to do with the US.
No, I'm not jumping to the worst possible conclusions. I am stating that it's worrying broadcasting your GPS-location if it's logged. Then some of you americans jump all over me, stating there is no such problems, and that "we" are surveilled all the time, stating that surveillance is fine, just as long as you get something for it. Arguing that every handset and provider log your gps-position and on and on. And you wonder, why I say something about the patriotic acts and the US?
I know it's fashionable to despise the US these days. I hold no ill will toward Europe or Europeans, but you might want to
reconsider how horrid the US is on balance.
Funny you should mention that. Look at their front page right now. This is their top story:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/14/america/gitmo.php
Way to somehow turn it into a US issue, when globally, hundreds of various brands of handsets on numerous carriers have some type of location functionality, from tower triangulation to GPS/A-GPS.
I'm pretty sure you cannot triangulate after the fact.
Secondly, at least in this country, the police will have to have a warrant to even begin persuading the phone companies. Oh, and they have to pay for it too.
