Written June 2011 By Cliff Feldwick
Watching the stories unfold about iPhone and Android tracking of your location data is fascinating. Like any news story, it takes a few days to come all the way out, and follows a familiar pattern.
Step 1: the accusation: “The Senator is having an affair”. “The iPhone is tracking you and saving the data”.
Step 2: the denial: “The Senator is a family man and deeply resents the implications of this baseless accusation. When not saving puppies and feeding the homeless, he is working on a cure for cancer. Anyone believing this lie is a Communist, a (fill in name of opposition party here), or an ex-wife”. “We do not track your locations”.
Step 3: evidence is introduced: “We have YouTube videos of an eighteen-year-old staffer and the Senator, at 3 AM in the Capitol fountain wearing only Post-It notes”. “Look, here’s the file name with location data and timestamps from the last six months. And it looks like the Google Androids are doing it too and sending it to Google”.
Step 4: spin and/or further denial: “The office often has to work late, and going out to dinner is part of that. Just because a favorite restaurant is named ‘Satan’s Bistro’ means nothing. And it was warm. And we keep Post-Its around so we don’t forget all our important thoughts. And she’s twenty, not eighteen. And damn, that fountain was cold. Not that we were ever in it.” “Well yes, there seems to be that file, but we were only gathering data so we could enhance your user experience”.
Steps 5 – infinity: more accusations, evidence, denial, spin, etc until we all know they’re lying.
And why, oh why, do companies hide behind “enhancing your user experience”? It’s like the local cable company (you know who you are) dropping channels and raising rates and saying “for your customer convenience”. Yeah.
Why do they want to
know?
Lots of people say they don’t care if their phones are tracking them – the “I have nothing to hide” defense. These people are dull and boring. Besides, this line of thinking is often used against people – “If you had nothing to hide, why would you care?” But besides the tinfoil-hat people (“the government is invading my brain”), most of us have a well-placed resentment about being spied upon, even if we are dull and boring. What exactly was Apple or Google planning to do with this data anyway?
I have my own theory: they’re going to sell it to advertisers. No surprise there; they sell everything to advertisers. But say you’re sitting in your favorite Starbucks, like every morning. Suddenly you get a message:”Bring in this ad tomorrow to your local Dunkin Donuts and receive a free 16-ounce coffee.” Whether you do or not, it should creep you out somewhat that this happens. And it will – most technology advances (?) not because it should but because it can. Read that last sentence again and see if you’re really OK with that.
Duh
And, once again, companies have egg on their face. Did they really believe they could do this tracking and no one would know? Exactly how many times does Google (maker of the Android software) need to get caught skirting the limits of privacy before they get smacked by the feds? If we started tracking the movements of Google executives, they’d scream bloody murder.
Anyway, I wish the Senate investigating committees good luck and good hunting in their probes into this. Maybe they can enhance our user experience.
Let’s Go Make Money
In an unrelated “why are we sitting here reading – we should be writing software” moment, LinkedIn went public in May, starting with 7.8 million shares at $45 each, thus making its founders billionaires in one day. That price soared to over $115 the first few days, “declined” to $85 and now hovers around $95. Not bad. Not bad at all.
Facebook, meanwhile, remains a privately held company. Not to worry – there are “secondary markets” such as SharesPost that trade in private stock. If you went with that, you could have purchased Facebook stock in March at about $34. Based on the number of shares issued, that makes the market value of Facebook over $85 billion. Yes, that’s a “b”. Depending on your viewpoint on bubbles and/or social media stocks, it’s either on its way to $100 billion or headed to a wall shortly. Whenever the next “killer app” comes out, it’s probably toast.
More timesucks
Too much time on your hands? The game Angry Birds, usually a smartphone app, is now available online for your PC. Go to http://chrome.angrybirds.com. I’d never done it on a phone, but tried it on the PC, strictly for research purposes, of course. Addictive, stupid and a lot of fun.