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Apple and Google to Appear at Senate Privacy Circus

Written on
May 3, 2011 
Author
Gavin Dunaway  |
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Apple and Google to Appear at Senate Privacy Circus

clownsADOTAS – At the end of an article about an upcoming hearing on data privacy, Gautham Nagesh of The Hill’s tech blog Hillicon Valley quips that “protecting consumer privacy might be the rare exception to the anti-regulatory sentiment driving the House GOP this year.”

As BlueCava’s Dave Norris commented at a data privacy panel last week in New York, “Do Not Track” legislation will be passed because it’s a major political win. Financial industry reform, healthcare reform? Those are like half-court buzzer shots compared to the slam dunk of Do Not Track.

I mean, Osama bin Laden is dead so we need a new boogeyman to keep the citizens up at night. How about those scheming nerds in Silicon Valley? They probably want revenge, just like in the movie, so they’re tracking us with the location data from our super-cool phones and selling it to advertisers so they can — gasp — try to sell us stuff!

Evil, evil!

Seems Apple didn’t put an end to the mobile location data “scandal” with its detailed response to consumer, media and governmental queries about the location data it was collecting on iPhones as well as data sent back to Apple. If anything, this latest data privacy flare-up has brought on a full-blown case of consumer data paranoia, so of course the government wants in. This could make for the most exciting hearing in DC since we brought all those baseball players in to lie about their steroid use!

That’s right — Apple will join mobile OS rival Google on Capital Hill next Tuesday, May 10 to answer more questions about their location data practices. Both were invited by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn) in a letter seeking answers about suspect location data practices unearthed by two researchers and printed in The Guardian.

“This hearing will serve as a first step in investigating if federal law protecting consumer privacy — particularly when it relates to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets — is keeping pace with advances in technology,” Franken said in a statement.

This hearing is different from the one announced by Senate Commerce Committee Chair Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va) on consumer privacy on mobile phones. No word who will attend that one, but get your tickets now — everyone wants a piece of this bird.

Google RSVP’d yes to the invitation with a statement reminding the public that location-sharing on its Android mobile is absolutely opt-in.

“We provide users with notice and control over the collection, sharing and use of location in order to provide a better mobile experience on Android devices,” a Google statement read. “Any location data that is sent back to Google location servers is anonymized and is not tied or traceable to a specific user.”

That last part sounds very similar to what Apple claimed — the company crowd-sources anonymous and encrypted data from cellphone towers and wifi hotspots to enhance GPS services. Apple also said it’s using this aggregated data to build improved traffic data maps.

But this explanation hasn’t sat well with many people, particularly media commentators. Suspicions were further brewed by accustations that Apple waited a long time to respond to the “charges” — CEO Steve Jobs snapped back that the company spent a week looking into the problem to give a detailed answer to consumer, media and governmental concerns.

Of course, some of us have been wondering about these location data practices since a year ago, when Apple changed its privacy policy to say that it stores and receives certain location data no matter the user preference. Promised updates will change that, offering users the ability to opt out of all data collection (and you thought GPS services on AT&T’s 3G network couldn’t get worse!).

The Senate hearing will also feature the testimony of Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission officials, as well as independent privacy researcher Ashkan Soltani and Justin Brookman, director of consumer privacy at the Center for Democracy & Technology. Brookman told Computerworld last week he doesn’t buy Apple’s claim it doesn’t track users. You can read his take on the proposed Kerry/McCain Privacy Bill here.

Will I watch the hearing? I doubt it — I’ll be too busy trying to cover some real news.





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