Recently, Apple has been in some hot water for tracking users, in a manner of speaking. The phones keep a record of nearby radio towers and wi-fi hotspots.
Less recently, Google has been in a bit of hot water for their StreetView cars taking down wifi hotspots, as well.
Cellphone customers are outraged their phones might be tracking them, or that their search providers online (Google, as the main example here) "remembers" what sites you've visited to give you targeted ads.
"Oh NO! How DARE they!" Everyone exclaims. "Our privacy is being invaded!"
This coming from the masses that put tons of pictures of themselves online on Facebook, let alone their personal information and much much more. This coming from the multitudes of people that use Google Maps and are happy about the traffic information it provides, culled in part (at least) from anonymous users reporting their speed and location when they use the service. This coming from people who have grown accustomed to the notion of privacy as if Apple having an ID number for your phone being completely equal to Jason Bourne tracking your every move, about to kill you because he can.
Look, people, stop worrying. Stop caring. Yes, privacy in some respects is a very vital and important thing. But are you really fighting the right fight here? No, I think not.
If you allow your phone to let Google or Apple know where you are, are you going to be abducted? Is ANYTHING bad going to happen? NO! Think, for a moment, and ask yourself what is actually going on there. What negative effect is there? None. Instead, we reap free benefits instead. Google uses location data from phones to better serve us with their maps and live traffic information that is crowdsourced from us all. Apple wants to do the same thing.
And lets talk about ads for a second, here. If Google knows what sites I visit when logged in to my username, and uses my search history and history of sites visited to deliver better ads to me, how the heck is that a bad thing? Would you really prefer to see a bunch of useless irrelevant ads on websites? I know I sure would rather see things that I'd want and care about.
The point is, these big multinationals may be evil and scary and whatnot, but you really are getting upset about the wrong things. Instead of worrying about some secret operative tracking you personally all day long, which is not the case, how about not putting your entire life on Facebook where people can see every last detail about you?
There are honestly valid concerns here.
ReplyDeleteIf Google, Apple, Facebook, RIM and AT&T all know a lot about you -- and they do -- that might not be worrisome in and of itself. And like you say, hey, you get free services and maybe ads that you're interested in. The real, deep worry isn't that Facebook is sending Jack Bauer et al to whack you.
The problem is that many of these companies, to varying extents (Facebook, RIM and AT&T being the worst offenders!), have histories of collaborating with governments, who do, in fact, do terrible things to people.
You might think that this is primarily a problem in crazy authoritarian places Far Away (Iran, China, Saudi Arabia...), but recall that AT&T still has an enormous pipe that routes quite a lot of traffic straight to the NSA for convenient mining.
But if you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to hide, right? Right?
(yes, people are dumb to plaster their lives on Facebook; but half of everybody is below average, and you don't get to go to parties if you're not on Facebook. What do you expect?)