Friday, April 22, 2011

iBrother Is Watching

As if I needed any more reasons not to buy any Apple products, I found an article today that apparently in the latest version of their OS, they have embedded code in your iPhone that tracks wherever you go with the GPS and forwards it back to Apple to sell to the highest bidder.  Apple continually shows contempt for it's customers, but I have no doubt that fanboys will immediately chime in to defend them regardless.  At least Steve Jobs hasn't been as blunt about giving the finger to his customers as Facebook VP Elliot Schrage who said, "If you don't want Facebook to share your personal information, don't share your personal information with Facebook."  But he's slowly but surely closing the gap.

And while Apple is evasive in regards to what they do with this data, what is clear is that law enforcement is using it to keep tabs on you.  Now I'm a law abiding citizen - I don't even jaywalk - so I should have nothing to fear by this, or so you would think.  But it raises the question for me of who else is tracking people, and are law enforcement agencies only using this data in an ethical manner.  This is a little too Orwellian for my tastes.

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