The Palm Pre Creating Privacy Concerns
Recently there have been concerns brought against the Palm Pre that user privacy might be in peril. The charge is that the phone sends data back to Palm on a daily basis. Apparently, this was not something that sat well with this individual.
This data sent not only included how long each application was used for, it also provided Palm with a rundown of the user’s current location. Hmm, at least part of this sounds like how my iPhone 3G always asks me if I would like to allow the device to know where I am… for the phone’s location-based applications.
Frankly, the fault here is that when the phone is first used, the user is not given a CLEAR option to turn this service off. Instead, Palm expects people to read articles like this one, then discover what is happening, then choose to dig through the settings to disable the service should they want to. Palm is clearly in error on that one. And as for the statistical data sent back to Palm, frankly, unless it is giving these phones away, this is none of Palm’s business.
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5 Comments
These are a Few of My Favorite Things | Chris Pirillo
August 13th, 2009
at 10:35pm
[...] Is the Palm Pre providing privacy concerns? [...]
Silicon Tokyo Shortener ~ Windows Fanatics
August 14th, 2009
at 12:15am
[...] the Palm Pre providing privacy [...]
Marc
August 16th, 2009
at 5:13pm
I love how when I read the article there are ads for the phone.
shawnkquinn.com » Blog Archive » Palm’s leaking mobile phone miscue
August 18th, 2009
at 7:17am
[...] Matt Hartley writing for Lockergnome reports on a disturbing privacy problem with the Palm Pre, citing a BBC story. The detail of data being sent back to Palm is rather alarming, including user location, application usage patterns, and a list of applications installed on the phone. [...]
Gord
August 21st, 2009
at 7:44am
Hi Ron:
I’m not a PRE user so “no axes to grind”, but,
is this really any different that other software we run into almost daily. As an example, try to find info on the fact that
HP makes daily contact with your computer (after you have installed the software for an HP Printer) and unless you turn it off, you are “polled” daily, presumably so they can offer you updates. Yeah, right! Real Networks, Java Updates, to name just a couple more.
If people just take the hype with “a grain of salt”, there would not be so many inadvertent computer invasions out there. Read the fine print…people!
Regards,