Geoffrey A. Fowler, Washington Post:
On a recent Monday night, a dozen marketing companies, research firms and other personal data guzzlers got reports from my iPhone. At 11:43 p.m., a company called Amplitude learned my phone number, email and exact location. At 3:58 a.m., another called Appboy got a digital fingerprint of my phone. At 6:25 a.m., a tracker called Demdex received a way to identify my phone and sent back a list of other trackers to pair up with.
And all night long, there was some startling behavior by a household name: Yelp. It was receiving a message that included my IP address -— once every five minutes.
And:
You might assume you can count on Apple to sweat all the privacy details. After all, it touted in a recent ad, “What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.” My investigation suggests otherwise.
iPhone apps I discovered tracking me by passing information to third parties — just while I was asleep — include Microsoft OneDrive, Intuit’s Mint, Nike, Spotify, The Washington Post and IBM’s the Weather Channel. One app, the crime-alert service Citizen, shared personally identifiable information in violation of its published privacy policy.
This is a big deal. Privacy is core to Apple’s brand and one of the main reasons I am so loyal to Apple’s ecosystem. Looking forward to Apple’s response to the Washington Post.
So after this story broke yesterday I shut off all background updating just to see what the effect on usability would be. So far I don’t notice any difference. I’d be interested to know what other users require background updating for?
You mean Background App Refresh? I had it on but just turned it off as I can’t think of anything vital that I need refreshed like that. YEs, this means Airmail will have to refresh when I launch it in the morning but… eh.
I find it hilarious that the Post is writing that, while demanding I turn off ad-block, to expose my browser to … tons of ad-based trackers.
Same. I’ve always had it turned off. It won’t save *all* the tracking but it will prevent this middle of the night crap. Plus, I turn my iPhone to Airplane mode each night before I go to bed. And just after I adjust my tinfoil hat. 🙂
The ineffectiveness of the backgrounding setting is what stands out as the biggest issue to me. I’ve turned it off for certain apps and many (like Google Hangouts) still show significant background activity in the battery use screen. As far as I can tell the setting does nothing.
Background App Refresh allows apps to run periodically in the background to pull in updated information so when they are launched they are reasonably current (i.e. a weather app could periodically get the current weather status so when it is opened the temperature is accurate).
Apps can also respond to push notification in the background as well as just running in the background. This means they may have substantial background activity unrelated to background app refresh. Many apps have more granular background usage controls in their settings.
Some people (e.g., Geoffrey A. Fowler) have way too many apps on their phone.
The article is mostly a commercial for Disconnect.me
Sorry, but Apple cannot be held liable for what happens with your data once you AGREE to give to a 3rd party. There is absolutely no way to track that data once it leaves your devices.
Yelp is an online service, not just an app that runs on Apple’s devices. They have their own user accounts that can be ceased wherever. Apple cannot tell Yelp what to do with that information. That’s completely your decision.
Doe sit suck? Yes. But read the EULA and stop using the service if you do not agree with how they run their business.
Do you have an extra 76 work days a year? Because that’s how long it is estimated it would take to read click throughs for the average American. I suspect the people here use more online and software services, where that number would be at least double that.
http://techland. time .com/2012/03/06/youd-need-76-work-days-to-read-all-your-privacy-policies-each-year/