After Facebook and Google faced public wrath and judicial investigations over “privacy concerns” earlier this year, Apple seems to have messed up on the privacy front as well. On Monday, Apple quietly updated its privacy policy as part of the iOS 4 update to allow the company to collect and share your Apple device’s location [...]
After Facebook and Google faced public wrath and judicial investigations over “privacy concerns” earlier this year, Apple seems to have messed up on the privacy front as well. On Monday, Apple quietly updated its privacy policy as part of the iOS 4 update to allow the company to collect and share your Apple device’s location information.
While Apple insists that it will not use people’s personal information but instead it will treat it as anonymous location information, people aren’t convinced with the company’s assurance.
So, why does Apple need to track the location of users? One of the reasons is that Apple offers location-targeted marketing using iAd. Of course, if you do not want to participate in iAd, you can opt out by accessing this URL on an iOS 4 device.
iOS 4 also allows the users to configure their “Location Services” settings. This option can be found under iOS Settings -> General and it can be used to configure applications which can use the location information. It is also possible to turn the location information use to ‘Off’ for all apps. Just to clarify, setting this value to ‘Off’ won’t stop ads from being shown. All it will do is make sure that the Ads are not targeted based on location information. At the D8 conference, Steve Jobs had re-iterated Apple’s stand to respect user’s privacy and suggested that Apple would never bring-in any changes without explicit user consent. Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that he’s being publicly blasted by customers and industry experts for not keeping his words.
In iOS4, a small arrow appears on the top right of your iPhone screen every time your location information is being accessed by an application. While that’s a good practice to let users know that their location data is being used, it’s not the best way of dealing with sensitive issues such as privacy. While many iPhone apps use location data, they do it after an explicit authorization by the users.
And it’s not just privacy woes troubling Apple for the iOS 4 update, many users have in fact reported that their Location Services are not working at all after an iOS 4 update. Have you faced any problems with location services or do you have any doubts about Apple’s updated privacy policy? If so, please share your concerns with us and we’ll be happy to help you out!
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