Josh OngApple Vice President of Global Affairs Catherine Novelli testified before the Senate Consumer Protection, Safety and Insurance subcommittee on Thursday, along with representatives from Google and Facebook, MacNN reports. Titled "Consumer Privacy and Protection in the Mobile Marketplace," the hearing came on the heels of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing that took place last week.
Apple largely held to its stance from the prior hearing. "Apple does not track users' locations — Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so," Novelli said.
Senators have turned their attention to the issue of mobile privacy recently partly in response to a report from security researchers last month that claimed Apple was pervasively tracking users' locations in a database file in iOS 4. Apple issued a statement denying the claims, asserting instead that the database was a crowd-sourced collection of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers used to help the iPhone's location services operate more quickly and accurately.
At Thursday's hearing, Google maintained its position that the open nature of Google Android requires in a hands-off approach to third-party applications.
"Google does not and cannot control the behavior of third-party applications, or how they handle location information and other user information that the third-party application obtains from the device," said Google's director of public policy for the Americas, Alan Davidson. "Google does strongly encourage application developers to use best practices," which include providing a set privacy policy, avoiding logging, and presenting options for data control.
Senators voiced their concerns at the hearing, raising the question whether geotracking can ever be legitimate. "I think anyone who uses a mobile device has an expectation of privacy, and sadly that expectation is not always being met," Sen. John Rockefeller IV said during the hearing. Rockefeller also expressed his dissatisfaction with "totally unregulated" state of the app market. The possibility of a "do not track" list was also raised during the discussion.
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43 Comments
So Apple will not track you, and police apps so that they cant use your tracking info without your permission. Google leave it open to devs to not track you by 'stongly suggesting' that they don't.
Google will have to re-think this attitude by the end of these hearings.
Apple should pass the details of offending app creators to the FBI for federal investigation. Maybe then they will find out why they are stealing user info.
Googles fanciful tales of Android being open have been recently debunked by evidence released in the skyhook trial which demonstrates Googles total control of the platform.
A wise man once said nothing in life is free.
You are foolish to believe otherwise.
So Apple will not track you, and police apps so that they cant use your tracking info without your permission. Google leave it open to devs to not track you by 'stongly suggesting' that they don't.
Google will have to re-think this attitude by the end of these hearings.
I have a feeling there is more to it than this one paragraph wrap up.
Poor magicj is going to have an aneurysm.
I have a feeling there is more to it than this one paragraph warp up.
Poor magicj is going to have an aneurysm.
He's been repeatedly saying AppleInsider has not been covering this 2nd hearing (and a possible conspiracy not to) so, expect him on this thread in 3.. 2.. 1..
So Apple will not track you, and police apps so that they cant use your tracking info without your permission. Google leave it open to devs to not track you by 'stongly suggesting' that they don't.
Google will have to re-think this attitude by the end of these hearings.
Apple: "We're not going to track users"
Google: "We're open, so we don't give a shit"
Every company provides the option to opt out of sharing the user data or behaviour targeting. Google or Apple are no exceptions, no company in the world can track you without your permission. But chances are there that you may have permitted the company to track as most of us never bother to read the privacy policy in details and just click I accept.
The best part is, Google is saying it doesn't know or care what apps track you once you give the app permission in that fabulous "Allow or Deny" Android screen.
So Apple will not track you, and [they will] police apps so that they cant use your tracking info without your permission. Google leave it open to devs to not track you by 'stongly suggesting' that they don't.
Google will have to re-think this attitude by the end of these hearings.
I would not give too much credence to the "[Apple will] police apps?" There is only so much they can do . They had various rules in place, but still there was that issue that Pandora and others took access to a lot of data, a lot of which was not necessary.
What ever became of that issue?