I don't think that's entirely true, most people wouldn't put themselves in this position if they had much of an option, but caring isn't simply a binary, black and white concept. Some people might care enough to toss out their iPhone or Android, some people might care enough to delete all apps, others might care enough to uninstall many of their free apps, and keep only a handful of absolute favorites, and still others might only care enough to simply be biding their time until a similarly functional alternative comes along, which some may say a Blackberry qualifies, but others, including me, will not (whether or not it actually does is irrelevant.)
I'm not going to stop using my Nexus One, but that doesn't mean I'm indifferent about this. I DO care about my privacy, but I also care about having a phone that gives me much of the functionality I get from it, like a PC that fits in my pocket. I had already been cautious of apps that apparently needed permissions to stuff like my GPS when there was no good reason for it, but I hadn't really known until a few days ago, reading a similar article, precisely what was going on and to what extent they were malicious. I already pay for most of the apps that I use regularly so that I'm probably a bit less exposed to the advertiser privacy breaches, although as long as I'm using any apps, I'm in no way immune.
As a response to this, I'll be even more vigilant with the apps I download, but weighing the benefits and looking at my alternatives, I accept a bit of risk of privacy invasion, though I'll work to minimize it. I really wish you could deny apps access to functions on a per-app, per-function basis (like, say, block a specific app from using GPS when it apparently accesses it for no good reason), but I suspect this may break a lot of apps that are not able to deal with such a denial, and even if that weren't true, I'm still not sure Google or Apple would introduce that functionality. But part of the reason I love my phone is the fact that I can even run a custom OS on it (I'm currently running an open-source one), and if anybody is going to come up with a solution, it's probably the people who develop these things. I would imagine that it could be done without breaking any apps by simply returning spoofed values rather than simply blocking requests, which would also have the added benefit of messing with the databases of these privacy invaders. As a "developer phone", my Nexus One has the stock function of using false GPS coordinates in order to test software, but this can only be applied globally rather than to specific apps.
Point is though, I'm going to continue using my android phone, although I definitely do care about my privacy,.. it's just that right now I'm willing to make that tradeoff/compromise - I feel the pros of continuing to use my phone outweigh the cons. And it's largely a mixture of such compromises, and many people simply being unaware of what's happening, that makes people continue to sacrifice some of their privacy. Most people DO in fact care to some degree... but like I said, it's not something that is simply black or white. Oh, and also... I'd love to hear how you imagine people will be "personally affected" by this more than they already are.
emfkOct 3, 2010
The fact of the matter is that most people don't care about mobile data privacy until it is too late or they've been personally affected.
emjaymjOct 3, 2010
I don't think that's entirely true, most people wouldn't put themselves in this position if they had much of an option, but caring isn't simply a binary, black and white concept. Some people might care enough to toss out their iPhone or Android, some people might care enough to delete all apps, others might care enough to uninstall many of their free apps, and keep only a handful of absolute favorites, and still others might only care enough to simply be biding their time until a similarly functional alternative comes along, which some may say a Blackberry qualifies, but others, including me, will not (whether or not it actually does is irrelevant.)
I'm not going to stop using my Nexus One, but that doesn't mean I'm indifferent about this. I DO care about my privacy, but I also care about having a phone that gives me much of the functionality I get from it, like a PC that fits in my pocket. I had already been cautious of apps that apparently needed permissions to stuff like my GPS when there was no good reason for it, but I hadn't really known until a few days ago, reading a similar article, precisely what was going on and to what extent they were malicious. I already pay for most of the apps that I use regularly so that I'm probably a bit less exposed to the advertiser privacy breaches, although as long as I'm using any apps, I'm in no way immune.
As a response to this, I'll be even more vigilant with the apps I download, but weighing the benefits and looking at my alternatives, I accept a bit of risk of privacy invasion, though I'll work to minimize it. I really wish you could deny apps access to functions on a per-app, per-function basis (like, say, block a specific app from using GPS when it apparently accesses it for no good reason), but I suspect this may break a lot of apps that are not able to deal with such a denial, and even if that weren't true, I'm still not sure Google or Apple would introduce that functionality. But part of the reason I love my phone is the fact that I can even run a custom OS on it (I'm currently running an open-source one), and if anybody is going to come up with a solution, it's probably the people who develop these things. I would imagine that it could be done without breaking any apps by simply returning spoofed values rather than simply blocking requests, which would also have the added benefit of messing with the databases of these privacy invaders. As a "developer phone", my Nexus One has the stock function of using false GPS coordinates in order to test software, but this can only be applied globally rather than to specific apps.
Point is though, I'm going to continue using my android phone, although I definitely do care about my privacy,.. it's just that right now I'm willing to make that tradeoff/compromise - I feel the pros of continuing to use my phone outweigh the cons. And it's largely a mixture of such compromises, and many people simply being unaware of what's happening, that makes people continue to sacrifice some of their privacy. Most people DO in fact care to some degree... but like I said, it's not something that is simply black or white. Oh, and also... I'd love to hear how you imagine people will be "personally affected" by this more than they already are.