I sat on my computer, prepared to synchronize my iPhone with iTunes 4. But I looked at the simple white cord, that I use to connect the phone and it suddenly seemed more worrying - as it was a kind of spy transmitter sending details of my life private directly to Apple.
Perhaps I should stop synchronization, thought. Perhaps a little stupid Web surfing instead. So I fired up the fire my browser and ready to enter a query in my Google search toolbar. But before that I could find "used wooden high chair", I've hesitated again. Would that happen if that search query has been stored with my site, and I was never to be bombarded with advertisements for supply stores local baby?
Hmmm. Perhaps should I just shut down the computer and let my smartphone for the day, I thought.
Or maybe I should get a grip.
With all the major titles of violations of privacy online and tracking of the location, it is easy to live in fear. Fear that large corporations such as Apple and Google know too much about me and go some way to reveal my deepest, darkest secrets in the world. Or I could do research and find out what types of data these businesses actually collect, and what they do with it. Because once you're informed, you will find that while some of the location and data collection practices can be a little underhanded, but they are not apocalyptic that some people might have us believe.
House phone?
The location-tracking brouhaha began when it was recently revealed that Apple iPhone and iPads follow and connect the locations of users and store the data in a file that is easily accessible. The file is stored unencrypted on the computers that were synchronized with mobile devices from Apple and may contain localization data that go back up to a year.
Researchers also found that Apple smartphones, and competing devices running Google's Android operating system, regularly transmit the location-based information to Apple and Google respectively. Therefore, also, making computers running the toolbar to search for Google and its Chrome browser.
And it is not only the manufacturer of these mobile devices and the software they run to collect information on the locations of users: cellular telecommunications companies are also guilty of the same thing. Verizon Wireless, which says that it will now put a sticker on new phones warning users that their location may be followed, said that it holds any personal data up to seven years. AT & T can store data for a few days - or five years. Sprint and T-Mobile, the two have similar policies.
CFPs: If you use a mobile device, it is likely that your location is being followed. But this is not a bad thing - and it is not almost ominous as it sounds. Despite the use of the word "followed", your every action is not followed. And your location is not passed on a giant map in a secret room where all your movements can be followed with a sort of flashing lights. That is not the case, not by a long shot.
The advantages of the location tracking
I agree that we should have a reasonable expectation of privacy. And I think that companies should be original and disclose the information they collect. And I truly believe that when you disable the specific characteristics of the location of your mobile device, this device should not be storing your location.
But I also know that many location data that is collected is used to provide the services that I want. I want that my iPhone to find out where I am - and quickly - find this place when I turn on Google Maps for instructions. I want that my Web browser to return the results of local research when I'm looking for the best pizza place. I want to be able take pictures with the camera of my iPhone, and follow where I took them.
I understand that the compromise for these amenities are the loss of some personal information. But isn't the same true whenever I use a credit card? The only way to win the total anonymity would dismiss all the amenities of a modern society. I am not prepared to do so. Are you?
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