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Federal Lawsuit Filed Over Apple's Location Tracking in iOS [Updated]

batchtaster said:
Presumably they refuse to own credit or debit cards for the exact same reason. Or work in any building which requires swipe-card access. Or shop in any mall which has security cameras...
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Again - these analogies are poor.

When you make a purchase with a credit card - you are fully aware that you are sending your location to the company.

When you use a swipe card - again - you understand you are "checking in" and "out" of a building

When you shop at a mall - there are signs that you may be recorded and/or that there are security cameras in place all over the place for exactly this reason.

The argument here is that people's locations are being recorded and stored in a database which they had/have no access to and can't easily delete, purge, opt out.
 
xIGmanIx said:
The fact that once again this is pointed out and apple refuses to even comment is terrible. I agree they need to be more transparent especially since we are moving to web and mobile 2.0. For a company that does so well with marketing their pr is terrible,
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Actually, they are doing it right. You don't over react and just start making press releases over issues like this. Doing so can just fuel the fire as much as you may think the opposite. I'm sure they will say something once they have a proper statement.

The bigger issue is that this issue (which is broader than just Apple - Apple is taking the heat because the iPhone is the phone that gets news. But this lawsuit could open the door for more industry wide regulation and that's going to inhibit innovation.

Think of it. All that little fancy traffic updates about slowdowns and possible heavy traffic... guess where that comes from? Your GPS and your phone data. That is what Google is monitoring to see how well traffic is moving in any given area. So, be prepared... that feature and features like it may be gone soon.

The sad thing is, none of this data that everyone is complaining about means a heck of a lot. The file on the iPhone and your computer is under your control. Just like all your other personal data. And, it's the same data that's collected by the Phone companies anyway.

The only people that should be worried about this is terrorist, criminals, and spouse cheaters who go places different than where they say they're going.

Otherwise, if someone was to get your local file, guess what... they will find out that you probably live in a particular area and that you get out of the house. The tower ping data in the file only shows what towers you've touched with your phone. Not your step by step movements.

So, all the alarmist should get real. This is only an issue because some people want to make news and others want to profit. Watch... these guys that filed the law suit are going for a class action suit against Apple and if they win they will also go for other damages against Apple, Google and others if that door is opened. They are only looking for their 5 minutes of fame and to cash in on a cash rich company.

It's stupid.
 
I don't understand the hatred of Apple. It's gone totally off the deep end. Is there a Rush Limbaugh on the radio spouting anti-Apple remarks for 3 hours a day that I don't know about? Where is it coming from? Seriously!

Wackos like airforce1 and SkyStudios hate Apple so much, that they want Apple to be guilty of anything - facts are completely irrelevant. They 'know' Apple is guilty DESPITE the facts that show the opposite. There are conspiracies everywhere! And THEY are the only ones smart enough to be able to figure it out!!! :rolleyes:

This is the same hatred I see from some republicans vs. Obama. Who cares
if Obama's birth certificate is readily available online? Let's just continuously say Obama doesn't have one - and the press will keep reporting what we say, and then we'll say it more, and the press will report it more, and so on and so on.... making a mountain of a molehill.

This is just crazy. Wake me up when America's mentality changes.
 
inkswamp said:
I was a little alarmed by the stories about this tracking database until I ran the program itself and saw the results. It's just showing the towers you've connected to. I've seen and heard many people assume that it's actually tracking exact movements and locations, but it's not.

Look, here's where it shows I've been in my hometown for the last year:

Image

And yes, I'm so anal-retentive that I make sure all my frequented locations are arranged in as perfect a grid as I can manage. :rolleyes:

BTW, that's NOT to let Apple off the hook. I think they effed up here and it needs to be removed. But the point is, a lot of alarmist crap has been written/assumed about this thing.
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It's amazing how many people don't know this about the software they downloaded...

To make it less useful for snoops, the spatial and temporal accuracy of the data has been artificially reduced. You can only animate week-by-week even though the data is timed to the second, and if you zoom in you’ll see the points are constrained to a grid, so your exact location is not revealed. The underlying database has no such constraints, unfortunately.
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http://petewarden.github.com/iPhoneTracker/
 
bbeagle said:
I don't understand the hatred of Apple. It's gone totally off the deep end. Is there a Rush Limbaugh on the radio spouting anti-Apple remarks for 3 hours a day that I don't know about? Where is it coming from? Seriously!

Wackos like airforce1 and SkyStudios hate Apple so much, that they want Apple to be guilty of anything - facts are completely irrelevant. They 'know' Apple is guilty DESPITE the facts that show the opposite. There are conspiracies everywhere! And THEY are the only ones smart enough to be able to figure it out!!! :rolleyes:

This is the same hatred I see from some republicans vs. Obama. Who cares
if Obama's birth certificate is readily available online? Let's just continuously say Obama doesn't have one - and the press will keep reporting what we say, and then we'll say it more, and the press will report it more, and so on and so on.... making a mountain of a molehill.

This is just crazy. Wake me up when America's mentality changes.
Click to expand...

Fact is they are logging your every movement... may not mean anything for your eventless life, but if someone found Paris Hiltons iphone.... that file is worth money.

If the goverment installed black boxes in all cars doing the same and obama said "we are not logging anyone", you would still call it a molehill?
 
This may have already been mentioned in the thread. But has there been any evidence that our iDevices are dialing home with this data?

I know that there is proof that Google does collect this data and they take it even further by retrieving your GPS coordinates, android then forwards the info to Google.
 
Ries said:
Fact is they are logging your every movement... may not mean anything for your eventless life, but if someone found Paris Hiltons iphone.... that file is worth money.

If the goverment installed black boxes in all cars doing the same and obama said "we are not logging anyone", you would still call it a molehill?
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If anyone besides Apple were doing this - there would be outrage.

And I'm not condemning Apple. As I wrote (which no doubt is buried in pages long ago) - I'm not sure - sincerely - how apathy towards being "on the grid" 24/7 is going to play out in the future. If you give up these aspects (freedoms, whatever word you choose) now it will harder/impossible to get them back.

dexthageek said:
This may have already been mentioned in the thread. But has there been any evidence that our iDevices are dialing home with this data?

I know that there is proof that Google does collect this data and they take it even further by retrieving your GPS coordinates, android then forwards the info to Google.
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It really doesn't matter if they are dialing it back or not. I mean - yes - if they are - it's far more sinister. But at the base of this discussion is whether or not the phone should be collecting this data indefinitely, whether or not a user can opt-out and if the file can be purged (easily). And of course, has there been adequate "warning" that this information is being collected.


For all the good that technology can bring - there are also negative aspects since technology is a tool. And when used correctly - can be life enhancing. It can also be detrimental.

Ask anyone who's been a victim of identity theft what they've had to go through to get their lives "back." What precautions they now have to/opt to take to make sure it can't happen again.

People need to look long term on these types of issues that come up and how they accrue.
 
Ries said:
Fact is they are logging your every movement... may not mean anything for your eventless life, but if someone found Paris Hiltons iphone.... that file is worth money.

If the goverment installed black boxes in all cars doing the same and obama said "we are not logging anyone", you would still call it a molehill?
Click to expand...

Yes!:cool:
 
samcraig said:
Again - these analogies are poor.

When you make a purchase with a credit card - you are fully aware that you are sending your location to the company.

When you use a swipe card - again - you understand you are "checking in" and "out" of a building

When you shop at a mall - there are signs that you may be recorded and/or that there are security cameras in place all over the place for exactly this reason.

The argument here is that people's locations are being recorded and stored in a database which they had/have no access to and can't easily delete, purge, opt out.
Click to expand...

Seriously dude?

I've known for a long time that every time I log in to a website, my whereabouts are known. Every time I make a cellular call my whereabouts are known. Every time I access data on my phone my whereabouts are known. Every time I use my GPS, my whereabouts are known. My phone uses this tower tracking file NOT Apple. The purpose of this file is for better phone performance and battery life... I want that. I try to protect my personal data as much as I can, so I lock my devices down with a password. Problem solved.

Now if Apple was harvesting and storing this information without my permission, ON THEIR END, I'd be concerned. If they were selling this info I'd be steamed. This whole thing is so overblown.

I commend your concerns about security, I really do. I'm concerned as well. Anyone who is concerned about their data (and their is far more sensitive data on their phones than this file) LOCK YOUR DEVICES WITH A PASSWORD!

Apple does need to encrypt this file and I expect that will in fact happen. Truth be told, it should have been encrypted the whole time.
 
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bbeagle said:
I don't understand the hatred of Apple. It's gone totally off the deep end. Is there a Rush Limbaugh on the radio spouting anti-Apple remarks for 3 hours a day that I don't know about? Where is it coming from? Seriously!
Click to expand...

It always amazes me how polarized opinion are with respect to apple. Too many people are either 100% Apple Haters or 100% Apple Lovers - there does not seem to be much in between. I admit that 10 years ago I was one of the Apple haters, but I that was born too much out of not knowing enough about the Apple products and relying too much windows centric media. Once I decided to try a Mac (Got the first intel based one since I thought that worst case I just install windows on it) I saw the 'other' side and learned to love many things about Apple. I'm still somewhere in the middle (since due to my work I am still doing a lot of stuff on windows and e.g. I hated Vista but really like Win7). Don't think one company is better than the other on a global scale - in certain areas maybe. It just drives me nuts if I read the blind hatred and than you sometimes have to reply in an extreme way to get the point over. These days I use both systems, read windows centric blogs and mac centric blogs and try to find some balanced view (but I admit that I favor Apple a bit more than 'the other side', but that is based on experience with all systems for MY use case, might be different for others).
 
0815 said:
It always amazes me how polarized opinion are with respect to apple. Too many people are either 100% Apple Haters or 100% Apple Lovers - there does not seem to be much in between. I admit that 10 years ago I was one of the Apple haters, but I that was born too much out of not knowing enough about the Apple products and relying too windows centric media. Once I decided to try a Mac (Got the first intel based one since I thought that worst case I just install windows on it) I saw the 'other' side and learned to love many things about Apple. I'm still somewhere in the middle (since due to my work I am still doing a lot of stuff on windows and e.g. I hated Vista but really like Win7). Don't think one company is better than the other on a global scale - in certain areas maybe. It just drives me nuts if I read the blind hatred and than you sometimes have to reply in an extreme way to get the point over.
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That is not necessarily true. I've called Apple out before if I felt that there was good cause. This is not a big deal. Too much misinformation is being spread around. There are far greater security risks than the this file that your phone uses.

I agree that the file should have been encrypted, but seriously, outside of that, I don't know what the fuss is all about.
 
Bilbo63 said:
Seriously dude?

I've known for a long time that every time I log in to a website, my whereabouts are known. Every time I make a cellular call my whereabouts are known. Every time I access data on my phone my whereabouts are known. Every time I use my GPS, my whereabouts are known. My phone uses this tower tracking file NOT Apple. The purpose of this file is for better phone performance and battery life... I want that. I try to protect my personal data as much as I can, so I lock my devices down with a password. Problem solved.

Now if Apple was harvesting and storing this information ON THEIR END, I'd be concerned. If they were selling this info I'd be steamed. This whole thing is so overblown.

I commend your concerns about security, I really do. I'm concerned as well. Anyone who is concerned about their data (and their is far more sensitive data on their phones than this file) LOCK YOUR DEVICES WITH A PASSWORD!

Apple does need to encrypt this file and I expect that will in fact happen. Truth be told, it should have been encrypted the whole time.
Click to expand...

Ultimately we agree. If a file like this is going to exist - it should be encrypted. I also think it should be user deletable. Right now - there's no "off" button, so to speak.
 
bbeagle said:
I don't understand the hatred of Apple. It's gone totally off the deep end. Is there a Rush Limbaugh on the radio spouting anti-Apple remarks for 3 hours a day that I don't know about? Where is it coming from? Seriously!

Wackos like airforce1 and SkyStudios hate Apple so much, that they want Apple to be guilty of anything - facts are completely irrelevant. They 'know' Apple is guilty DESPITE the facts that show the opposite. There are conspiracies everywhere! And THEY are the only ones smart enough to be able to figure it out!!! :rolleyes:

This is the same hatred I see from some republicans vs. Obama. Who cares
if Obama's birth certificate is readily available online? Let's just continuously say Obama doesn't have one - and the press will keep reporting what we say, and then we'll say it more, and the press will report it more, and so on and so on.... making a mountain of a molehill.

This is just crazy. Wake me up when America's mentality changes.
Click to expand...

Think of it.... Apple Controls the Online music industry. They destroyed stores that sold CD's. They also now control a large portion of Phone industry and possibly by the news going after NetFlix. Apple is not the small upstart it once was struggling to get by. And they are making the competition mad. Apples a mature company and has plenty of money to defend itself you don't have to defend them.

Also I have not seen the real Obama Birth Certificate that he can get in two weeks. I honestly don't see the big deal with showing the Original signed document. There is a real signed Birth Certificate stored in Hawaii he has access to it its not like its lost.
 
dexthageek said:
This may have already been mentioned in the thread. But has there been any evidence that our iDevices are dialing home with this data?

I know that there is proof that Google does collect this data and they take it even further by retrieving your GPS coordinates, android then forwards the info to Google.
Click to expand...

Only the Opt-in data is transferred on both systems according to Apple and Google. Apple transmits about every 12 hours and Google does several times an hour. Google doing so for traffic information to update Google traffic maps (according to Google).

The file on the iPhone goes nowhere according to Apple. It's like your web browser cache. It's used by the iPhone to remember where towers are to reduce connection times and tower switching. According to Apple, it suppose to help with performance and battery life. I would guess because your phone is building a road map of cell towers and can anticipate the next one based on the tower you're connected to at the moment.

This whole thing is really blown out of proportion by anti-apple trolls, the press, and people trying to profit from the controversy.

My prediction... everyone's going to complain when new regulations are put in place that take us two steps backwards because of this.
 
roland.g said:
Looking for an easy settlement. Not going to get it. Gold digging morons.
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Amazing how some people still don't understand the legal and media systems. High-profile lawsuits like this aren't the result of some average person calling up an attorney and saying "I want to sue Apple!" Law firms identify specific issues they want to take on, then find representative plaintiffs willing to put their names on the suit. And, god. Yes. It's about money. Why does that surprising to anyone?! Apple and Google collect and store location data for advertising and other business purposes (i.e. MONEY) and attorneys sue corporations for MONEY. No big deal, that's business.

As much as I like Apple products, I am glad to see the suit, and I expect Google will be the target of another one soon. It's good to challenge the plutocracy once in a while. Of course, it won't matter in the end. Especially in light of the comments on this site ("So what if they track me" "I'm not a criminal, who cares" "Don't have a phone if you don't want to be tracked", etc) They've already got you, sheeple!
 
Ries said:
Fact is they are logging your every movement... may not mean anything for your eventless life, but ...

If the goverment installed black boxes in all cars doing the same and obama said "we are not logging anyone", you would still call it a molehill?
Click to expand...

That's the real point of this "infringement". Most nobody cares that Apple is tracking phones for reasons of tech research; they are all concerned with what the GOVERNMENT will do with that information. Privacy rights are eroded in this nation, and it makes people crazy for good reason.
 
Ries said:
If the goverment installed black boxes in all cars doing the same and obama said "we are not logging anyone", you would still call it a molehill?
Click to expand...

That's a very poor analogy, the government doesn't sell cars and last I checked Apple is NOT the government.
 
Bernard SG said:
That's a very poor analogy, the government doesn't sell cars and last I checked Apple is NOT the government.
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So? I think you missed the point completely. Why should a pubic company be any less responsible? The point is - some people here want to give Apple a free pass because it's Apple. And/or they are apathetic about giving out their location 24/7.

Other companies would fry on these boards for doing the same.
 
macaddiict said:
I haven't read this lawsuit, so I don't know if they're claiming things that aren't true... but I really do not like the fact that the iPhone has a breadcrumbs database of my travels for the last 3 years!

This type of thing should not happen without users' knowledge... and it was. Or else this file would not be news!
Click to expand...

I agree.

I think most people will agree that advertising/marketing is extremely rampant in the USA and that even though we may not notice it all the time, it's all around us.

However, purchasing a device (iPhone) and having it secretly document my whereabouts 100% of the time so Apple/whoever can sell/use this location information is quite unethical.

Whenever an app wants to use our location info, it asks us. But it seems in this lawsuit that Apple doesn't ask...it just does it without our knowledge.

There are some who will argue that it's just location information or who cares if Apple sells each location for 3 cents. The point is that Apple is doing it without your knowledge and without you having the ability to disable it. That's unethical and it's likely very illegal.
 
Bilbo63 said:
That is not necessarily true. I've called Apple out before if I felt that there was good cause. This is not a big deal. Too much misinformation is being spread around. There are far greater security risks than the this file that your phone uses.

I agree that the file should have been encrypted, but seriously, outside of that, I don't know what the fuss is all about.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying everybody is 100% one side or the others - just way too many. Those People need to start to think for themselves, get information from multiple sources and not bash some company just because it is not their favorite company.
 
mdriftmeyer said:
How does an encrypted db aide your sense of security when the information is about publicly listed cell towers [FCC registered], and ends up at Google which profiles your activities for trends which then allows them to resell this information through their AdSense service and more?

How did your sense of security become violated when the Telcos have historically sold your contact information to third parties who flood your mail box with junk mail and get you on lists w/o your consent? Does it send you through the roof that your liberties are being violated?

Do you scream at Safeway, Albertsons, Starbucks and every other business that profiles your buying habits that it pushes you to file a class action lawsuit?

I think not.

This and all subsequent lawsuits will be thrown out. Apple is in compliance with the FCC rules and regulations set by Congress.

If you notice, Congress has been conspicuously absent since sending off a letter to Steven P. Jobs.

The only people pushing this story are blogs and journalists [HuffingtonPost, WSJ, etc] because it gets them massive click through results.

People are crying about a location service doing what it's designed to do, yet they acted as if RFID tags that WalMart wanted to deploy, a few years back, was no big deal.

One of the obvious reasons Apple sees no reason to encrypt the db is it's one extra process to decrypt/encrypt each time a new tower cell is logged to the phone as it keeps probing for the best signal, shortest path to that signal solution, across a spread spectrum.

But then again, I forget that 99% of all consumers are Physicists, Engineers, Mathematicians, Doctors, and we produce children with Ph.D's ala Wesley Crusher dealing with Particle Physics at the tender age of 15 so commonly that the thought of an unintelligent human has long since become a relic to the evolution of the species.

While everyone screams about tracking they conveniently ignore the IP address that keeps them tracked using their own computer(s).
Click to expand...

Man you are the man! Well said! I agree with you
 
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