Apple and App Developers Sued Over Sharing User Information With Advertisers

[MacRumors]

Bloomberg reports that Apple and a number of App Store developers have been sued over the sharing of personal information with advertisers working through apps installed on the iPhone and iPad.

The complaint, which seeks class action, or group, status, was filed on Dec. 23 in federal court in San Jose, California. The suit claims Cupertino, California-based Apple's iPhones and iPads are encoded with identifying devices that allow advertising networks to track what applications users download, how frequently they're used and for how long.

"Some apps are also selling additional information to ad networks, including users' location, age, gender, income, ethnicity, sexual orientation and political views," according to the suit.

Along with Apple, developers behind such apps as Pandora Radio, Paper Toss, The Weather Channel, and Dictionary.com have also been targeted with the suit.

In particular, the companies are accused of sharing Unique Device Identifiers (UDIDs) for users' devices. As suggested by their name, these UDIDs are unique to each device, can not be changed, and transmission of them back to Apple or developers can not be blocked by users.

For its part, Apple notes that it screens all App Store applications to make sure that personal information is not transmitted from users' devices without their express permission, although such information may be able to be passed along to ad networks.

It is unclear whether the lawsuit is targeting a legitimate privacy issue or if it's simply objecting to the typical non-identifiable demographic information used by advertisers in targeting their content. While the UDID does not specifically identify any given user, tying any anonymized personal data to that fixed identifier is viewed as a risk by some privacy advocates.

An investigation by The Wall Street Journal published earlier this month hyped the ability of iPhone and Android applications to transmit such personal data, and it is possible that the new lawsuit was inspired by that report.

Article Link: Apple and App Developers Sued Over Sharing User Information With Advertisers

 

[louis Fashion]

No Hope

Don't get your hopes up. Class action suits only enrich the lawyers.
Do not expect a check in the mail.

 

[zxcvb]

damn, let apple learn a lesson, personal information should be kept private and you can not use it for making money.

 

[TheRealTVGuy]

Soo....

Another suit by the class-action trolls...

So Apple et. all are being sued for doing what Google tries to do (in a different way) every millisecond of everyday...?

Yeah, Apple's the one they should go after.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the fact that Apple is such a large company? (Makes for a big target) Good thing they recently "Lawyer'd Up"!

 

[kas23]

I understand that Apple is not developing these apps, but they are entangled in these apps due to their involvement in "approving" these apps, distributing these apps using their servers, and also by making money off their sale. Therefore, Apple should take more responsibility for the app's content and consequences. If they don't want to take the heat, then they should remove themselves from the app approving/distributing business.

So Apple et. all are being sued for doing what Google tries to do (in a different way) every millisecond of everyday...?

It's not a secret what Google does. It's one of their well-known practices. It's actually how every advertising firm survives - by marketing to the appropriate demographic. That said, if you don't like this, you shouldn't use their services. Nor watch TV, read the newspaper, use a credit card, or use any frequent shopper cards, as all of these services are monitoring your behaviors and habits.

 

[k1121j]

What other information do they share

I made a call to iTunes support re data loss and apple let Me redownload my purchases. gave them my moble me email for them to follow up witch is not my iTunes acct email and with in 24 hrs I got an email from what was blaming to be a college doing a survey related to dataloss related to iTunes and wanted me to take a survey how did they get that information. STRANGE


Hello-

I am conducting research on behalf of a team at Northwestern University and would like to hear*your thoughts regarding*how you store, backup and share files, data and media in your home. To thank*you for your time, you will be*entered to win a new Apple TV*upon qualified completion of the survey.
*
The survey below is designed to take*approximately 10 minutes*of your time.*
*
Click here to take the survey.
*
I appreciate your help and look forward to learning from your feedback.
*
Best Regards,

Chris Shields
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

*

Follow the link to opt out of future emails:
http://kellogg.qualtrics.com/CP/Reg...RP_3JhvGoB1e507Dgw&LID=UR_0lfngfowA0Qwlpi&_=1

 

[PeterQVenkman]

dpersonal information should be kept private and you can not use it for making money.

This is what advertising is now. This is why I did not applaud Apple entering the ad market. iAds isn't innovation like we normally see from Apple. It's just yet another ad network doing all the same creepy things the other guys do.

 

[Gen]

Why would you put your income, ethnicity or political views into an App?
Everyone should just put in white - it'd be funny.

 

[alent1234]

Why would you put your income, ethnicity or political views into an App?
Everyone should just put in white - it'd be funny.

your iphone ties you to a unique AT&T account. it's the holy grail since trying to figure out who is who has been a problem in the last 10 years with internet advertising.

you open an app and it sends known data about you which is then compared with other data that has been collected to market to you

 

[zeemeerman2]

Why would you put your income, ethnicity or political views into an App?
Everyone should just put in white - it'd be funny.

App that copares your income to the average income, so you know whether you're rich or poor and can act accordingly.
But... to get that average, the app uploads your income to a central database that can be sold to any third/fourth party.

 

[Dr McKay]

Everyone does it, why does everyone just assume it's only Google that does it.

Everyone seems to have this evil image of Google.

 

[bushido]

i'm surprised the EU isnt after it yet

 

[Xtremehkr]

Maybe I should have read all 27 pages of the agreement that came with the latest iTunes download.

Who knows what they're doing with minor details like location or where I use a particular app.

Apple is quite aware that if they egregiously cheat their customers of their privacy they will be the ones who eventually feel the pain.

I'm pretty sure though, somewhere in those 27 pages, I should have known that my iPhone would be doing this. I actually kind of expected it, given what the phone is capable of.

The other thing that makes me feel better that is that Apples iron grip on their own iOS is much more likely to prevent the security holes that can be punched through Android.

 

[ikir]

damn, let apple learn a lesson, personal information should be kept private and you can not use it for making money.

Probably you don't know what it is about. It is about... paranoia. No personal information travels with UUIDS, just the id itself is unique. many games use this for letting you play with a single account like if i remember correctly My Brute for example.

As always some users get it wrong and blame Apple or someone else for nothing.

 

[KnightWRX]

Everyone does it, why does everyone just assume it's only Google that does it.

Everyone seems to have this evil image of Google.

I'm waiting to see how the "Apple does no wrong" crowd spins this so as to say they weren't wrong when they said Apple wasn't going to do this.

 

[faroZ06]

damn, let apple learn a lesson, personal information should be kept private and you can not use it for making money.

Oh noes, the UUID! I feel so insecure now!
If anything sue AOL and Google. They always take information. And Apple doesn't even make the apps, so why are THEY getting sued? Not to mention we don't even know yet if the UUIDs ARE getting stolen.

Trolls

 

[Small White Car]

Don't get your hopes up. Class action suits only enrich the lawyers.
Do not expect a check in the mail.

Uh, it seems pretty clear that they're after a policy change, not a check. Where'd you get that idea?

As usual, this type of complaint spans dozens of issues. I agree with some, disagree with others. There's no winning 'side' here.

Bottom line: It's complicated and anyone who claims to be 100% pro-lawsuit or 100% pro-apple is someone who probably didn't think too long about their position.

 

[arn]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Everyone does it, why does everyone just assume it's only Google that does it.

Everyone seems to have this evil image of Google.

I'm waiting to see how the "Apple does no wrong" crowd spins this so as to say they weren't wrong when they said Apple wasn't going to do this.

It's not an Apple does no wrong thing. It's that this particular issue isn't really an Apple issue.

 

[faroZ06]

Why would you put your income, ethnicity or political views into an App?
Everyone should just put in white - it'd be funny.

I think UUID taking is a harmless, usefull practice. All it does is keeps track of the number of users and such. No personal info.

But still, I don't want it to be uploading stuff all the time. I hate it when it lags from that. BTW Galcon Lite keeps trying to get a WiFi connection on my SIM-less hacked found-in-the-trash iPhone, so it's probably doing that too.

I think those people who said "Apple is gonna get sued. YES! No stealing my info" are anti-Apple fanboys

 

[TimUSCA]

I realize this whole private data business is a slippery slope, and I don't know that I'd want it going past what it has already been.

But who freaking cares about your phone's ID number, age, location, etc? It's not like there are names, phone numbers, addresses, or anything of the sort being transmitted. It's all anonymous information used for advertising. Nothing more than ad agencies trying to reach their target market.

Personally, I couldn't care less. Maybe it's because I'm in marketing, so I completely understand the importance of reaching target audiences, but if none of the information is personally identifiable, I think anyone who is upset about this is being a baby and doesn't fully understand what's really going on here.

As I said, it's a slippery slope. But so far, nothing of much importance has been transmitted. Also, if I'm going to be shown ads (which I am), I'd much rather them be relevant to my life than completely random garbage.

 

[Arguru]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)



It's not an Apple does no wrong thing. It's that this particular issue isn't really an Apple issue.

Where are the apps stored and who is redistributing them?

 

[faroZ06]

Where are the apps stored and who is redistributing them?

Who made the apps?

Youtube has plenty of pirated videos that are stored and distributed by Youtube. It's not Google's problem.

 

[wackymacky]

your iphone ties you to a unique AT&T account. it's the holy grail since trying to figure out who is who has been a problem in the last 10 years with internet advertising.

you open an app and it sends known data about you which is then compared with other data that has been collected to market to you

So you're saying that advertisers can link your iPhone ID number with your AT&T account information and credit info? It would have to be AT&T providing this.

And if they can sue Apple for allowing this on iPads and iPhones, then Apple and Microsoft can be sued because the OS on peoples home computers allow people to collect information about them if they search the web etc.

 

[KnightWRX]

It's not an Apple does no wrong thing. It's that this particular issue isn't really an Apple issue.

An issue that people claimed Apple wouldn't participate in with iAd. I remember all the claims that "Android is about stealing your info to sell to advertisers!" and "Apple will never stoop that low, they are protecting you with iAd!". All the attacks on Google about privacy and Apple being different...

Seriously, anyone who actually believed that Apple wouldn't do this was delusional. Thanks for the first spin post though. "We weren't wrong, we never claimed Apple would never do this!".

 

[vincenz]

Great, another one of these stories. The lawyers win again.