“Put on your tinfoil hats, because according to the findings of XianLi, one of the members of Hackint0sh, the iPhone spies on you,” Jesus Diaz reports for Gizmodo.
The evidence in the code shows that the Stocks and Weather applications send your IMEI number—the unique number that identifies your iPhone and is tied to your personal information—to Apple, along with the nature of the information you are looking at:
“While there’s no evidence that Apple actually uses this information for any purpose, good or evil, the code shows that every time you try to access detailed information on whatever stock, your IMEI will be sent embedded in the URL. This could be cross-referenced with IP location and the information in Apple or its partner’s databases to gather extremely valuable data for marketing purposes,” Diaz reports.
More in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s iPhone Software License Agreement states, “You agree that Apple and its subsidiaries may collect and use technical and related information, including but not limited to technical information about your iPhone, computer, system and application software, and peripherals, that is gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, product support and other services to you (if any) related to the iPhone Software, and to verify compliance with the terms of this License. Apple may use this information, as long as it is in a form that does not personally identify you, to improve our products or to provide services or technologies to you.”
Odd.
While I don’t fear this particular information being recorded, I fear that it is being done all together. I would advise Apple to put a stop to it immediately.
The iPhone has suffered entire too much “Big Brother” control from the start with Apple telling customers what they can and cannot do with the instrument THEY purchased.
Now we find that in addition to their oppressive and stringent controls on usage they are actually WATCHING your actions and delivering PERSONAL data to advertisers.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This is not the Apple I’ve supported for years. Some wrong minded people are making decisions in Cupertino these days.
The new Big Brother
Kinda hard to not have access to this stuff, even if it does seem Orwellian.
“…Apple may use this information, as long as it is in a form that does not personally identify you, to improve our products or to provide services or technologies to you …”
Your IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identifier) identifies you.
How about we flood iphone-wu.apple.com with useless random data?
“…Kinda hard to not have access to this stuff, even if it does seem Orwellian …”
Why is it hard? Simply don’t take advantage of the ability to gather it.
Yet again, at least where the iPhone is concerned, Apple has chosen the opportunistic over the moralistic.
I can see it now. “Dear TheloniousMac, we see you spend a great deal of time in the Wilshire area and West Los Angeles and we checked your credit and we can see that you prequalify for a loan on one of these beautiful new townhomes in the area. If you were there you’d be home, which we know you’re not right now. You’re stuck in traffic.”
Is there any significance to the fact Weather and Stocks are both Yahoo! widgets?
This is unacceptable.
i feel sick. i hope at least in germany there will be judges treating this matter responsibly and hopefully they will not let apple get through with this.
I have noticed nearby speaker interference (caused by cellular communications) when ever I use the alarm clock or timer functions. I have wondered if there was information being sent to Apple about product usage. Now I know.
This is not the kind of press Apple should want with the iPhone. This story will gather steam. Most people want to protect their privacy. People store their lives on there computers and now their iPhone. If Apple gets a bad reputation with respect to the data we intrust to them, it will harm both their iPhone and Mac business.
“MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s iPhone Software License Agreement states, “You agree that Apple and its subsidiaries may collect and use technical and related information, including but not limited to technical information about your iPhone, computer, system and application software, and peripherals, that is gathered periodically to facilitate the provision of software updates, product support and other services to you (if any) related to the iPhone Software, and to verify compliance with the terms of this License. Apple may use this information, as long as it is in a form that does not personally identify you, to improve our products or to provide services or technologies to you.””
So in other words, it’s ok?
Come on fanboys, this sux and you know it. It’s the Evil Empire all over again, and it’s not ok. This is Microsoft territory now, and it’s a LOT worse with the relationship between Apple and Google/DoubleClick.
What’s wrong with tracking information? Unless you have something to hide? I would agree that this would be Orwellian when I see a prepondrance of evidence that this is the case–i.e., direct advertising to the individua via the iPhone. However, I have not seen this to be the fact. In the foreseeable future, maybe. I just don’t see it happening now.
I don’t like being tracked, profiled or spyed upon. The idea of privacy seems to be lost on corporations as a whole. This idea that a person doesn’t have the sense to choose for themselves is not true. I find this akin to a salesperson following you around the store all day. And who really thinks that any data collect won’t be used? Get real! Why are they collecting that data anyway?
Anybody hear of “trusted computing”?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_computing
Apple didn’t invent it!
You know it seems odd that people complain about this sort of stuff, but if you click on the “I Agree” button when you install software, aren’t you saying that you agree with the terms of the license? If we don’t take time to read the fine print, we have no one else to blame. If you don’t like it, quit agreeing to things you haven’t taken the time to read!
Deep breaths everyone
The user agreement said this would happen, right? The inane whining of trolls always amazes me. They keep expecting Apple to say they’ll collect data and then somehow forget to collect data. I suppose liars expect the whole world to lie as well. You get what you sign up for.
What’s wrong with tracking information? Unless you have something to hide?
Yeah, be good consumers and just take it like the bitches you know you are.
Usually every time you visit a website, your IP address is logged, unless you take extra steps of setting up a proxy server. Your computer’s MAC address is also sent along with every request. Website have access to your computer’s OS and browser information.
Unless you’ve blocked your phone number, which is personal to you, it is logged when you call any other cell phone or business that uses some form of call monitoring system or call display.
Now, that said, as a programmer and website creator (of which widgets are basically mini versions of), I see _no_ good reason for the phone’s IMEI number to be sent along with every Stocks or Weather request. That just doesn’t make any sense at all, and I hope Apple takes the appropriate action to remove this parameter from the request URL.
“The user agreement said this would happen, right?”
—————–
No, as theloniousMac mentioned above, the user agreement says:
“…Apple may use this information, as long as it is in a form that does not personally identify you, to improve our products or to provide services or technologies to you …”
However, Your IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identifier) identifies you.
This is in fact a violation of the user agreement that we agreed to.
snore
@Mean Guy,Ok so lets say Apple doesn’t use this data what’s the worst that can happen? No timely improvement to the interface , no new variants of the Iphone product line. No new features, the Iphone becomes a one trick pony and MS mobile starts to catch up with Vista Mobile (hahahaharrrggggg). I personally don’t mind this because with all that data Apple still is not preventing you from hacking your own personal phone despite the bitching of the hacking public. IF this get’s me a better product faster I’m all for it. Microsoft and Record companies use this data to squeeze more money from products already sold. Apple uses this to design the next life productivity tools…see the difference. 2 tenets in life it’s good to live by :
1. you can’t cheat an honest person and
2. If you have nothing to hide you have no reason to be paranoid.
since 1)nobody yet has any idea what is being collected or what it is used for, and 2) despite the tinfoil hat group having shown up in the past to gripe about this kind of stuff it has always turned out that Apple has been pretty fair and not used any questionable data or kept personal records (iTunes mini store anyone?) how about i suggest a wild idea.
stop, take a breath, wait to freak out until something is actually known.
i swear, the majority of people sit like sheep while the bush government spies on everything we do, but when a company with no past record to question tries to make sure their product is actually working as advertised the kooks come outta the woodwork…..
coolfactor: Usually every time you visit a website, your IP address is logged, unless you take extra steps of setting up a proxy server. Your computer’s MAC address is also sent along with every request. Website have access to your computer’s OS and browser information.
I don’t think that’s correct… your IP address is of course transmitted to allow the server to answer, but your MAC address is not transmitted over the internet.
Your MAC address is only known to the DSL router you’re going through, but it hides it from the external network. And your IP address is usually dynamic and by law not allowed to be known to the owner of the external server (at least in Germany).
Unnecessarily sending the IMEI along with a very pedestrian server request would be a major breach of german data protection laws. The excerpt above doesn’t really seem to substantiate that claim, but if that should really happen, Apple should brace itself for a major shitstorm of harshly negative publicity…
I suspect that Apple will change this once enough people formally complain about it.
or A class action lawsuit may change it…….
You don’t like being tracked? Do you use Google? Do you have an ISP? Who handles your email?
The entire internet is tracked. Apple claims that they will not use the personal information in any way to identify you, and so far in the Many Many years of registering Apple products there has been zero downside.
No marketing calls, except to offer a deal for AppleCare which I took, no marketing mail, some spam email which is hardly a problem…
…of all the crap out there, Apple is not the problem.
Sorry, let me re-phrase my post:
I love Apple and everything they do, without question. I should more thoroughly read their non-negotiable software license, because I would have realized that they have my own best interests in mind, and besides, the whole internet is tracked anyway, and I have nothing to hide, and only a troll would say otherwise, etc. Awesome.
Tre: “However, Your IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identifier) identifies you.
This is in fact a violation of the user agreement that we agreed to.”
Unless your name is “7T7<whatever>”, you’re never going to make this statement anything more than an uninformed opinion. Your IMEI points to your phone, not you, and the private info associated with your phone is *not* being sent out with the server requests.
There is no evidence that the data being collected is being used for *anything* at this point, much less hard-targeted advertiseing. Spend your time worrying about something that is actually happening.
If the internet has proved only one thing it’s that a huge number of people talk (type) before engaging their brains.
@Mocking the Paranoid.
Firstly, you’re not mocking me, because I’m not paranoid. I’ve nothing to hide. I’m just simply stating that this is a violation of the user agreement, because this data is not anonymous, you CAN be identified by your IMEI pointing to your phone, (as you stated.)
If you’re phone can be identified, so can you.
Steve’s making a list
he’s checking it twice
he wants to find out if your iPhone us has been
naughty or nice
because MacWorld is coming to San Francisco Town
He wants to know when you are sleeping and
to know when you are awake
he wants to know if your computer use has been bad or
good (no jailbreaking phones)
do be GOOD for apple bottom lines sake
because MacWorld is coming to San Francisco Town
(and if we are not good mac user boys and girls there will not be a “one more thing” to give us all)
It is Orwellian but not the first and not the worst. Cameras on the street with facial recognition capabilities, Google, AT&T;, Microsoft, Yahoo, Echelon and lots of others all are tracking you. What do the chips in your auto do? Go to Amazon.com and you don’t have to sign in.
Did you know that mobile phones can’t be turned off, you can be bugged. It came out in court, the FBI had to explain how they listened in on a conversation. With iPhones you can’t even remove the battery! Got a webcam?
You want any privacy at all? – it’s nearly too late already. This is the modern world. Free is good, free products, paid for with your time taking in adverts, isn’t it? Free in other ways? It’s perfectly fine though, if you do break any laws, isn’t it.
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
MDN condones:
– Spying
– Invasion of Privacy
– Bending over and taking it up the….
Do you sheep really find this okay? Any AppleSheep care to chime in?
____
>>El Guapo wrote: but if you click on the “I Agree” button when you install software, aren’t you saying that you agree with the terms of the license?
So we’re left to completely sign over our lives because companies can stuff all sorts of licensing gotchas in the fine text of Licensing Agreements… and you say it’s okay? even our faults?
How easily you bend over and sign your life away!
If you thought Microsoft was bad, look at what Apple is doing. What’s scary is so many of you willingly give Apple license to peak into your lives.
That’s what it amounts to… Apple’s licensing agreements are customers paying Apple to peak into their lives for a little bit of cool gadgetry.
I’ll just bother to answer one of the Seig Heil fanboys here, since they all say the same thing, which is basically if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear…..historically and logically ludicrous on the face of it, but it’s a canard that keeps coming up.
“@Mean Guy,Ok so lets say Apple doesn’t use this data what’s the worst that can happen? No timely improvement to the interface , no new variants of the Iphone product line. No new features, the Iphone becomes a one trick pony and MS mobile starts to catch up with Vista Mobile (hahahaharrrggggg). I personally don’t mind this because with all that data Apple still is not preventing you from hacking your own personal phone despite the bitching of the hacking public. IF this get’s me a better product faster I’m all for it. Microsoft and Record companies use this data to squeeze more money from products already sold. Apple uses this to design the next life productivity tools…see the difference. 2 tenets in life it’s good to live by :
1. you can’t cheat an honest person and
2. If you have nothing to hide you have no reason to be paranoid.”
First of all I assume you meant if Apple “does” use it, since if they don’t then why gather it? And I gather that you feel that if they don’t do it, then their development stops in it’s tracks?
Clearly they have a use plan, or they wouldn’t do it, and just as clearly a technology can be improved without tracking the user’s every literal and figurative move. Cell tech is not location dependent other than in a general sense.
The “anti-consumer” uses of such a technology are so many and varied that it’s impossible to describe here, but I go very easily back to the first example, which is the integration of Apple/Google/DoubleClick, which will know EVERY thing about you. You do the math there, 2 + 2 really does = 4.
Honest people get cheated all the time, what 9th grade spew…..and having nothing to hide assumes awfully altruistic tendencies to corporations, which have no such impediments to using the information in ways that THEY deem will make them more money. If you live your life by those tenets, I’ll hold your money for you K?
BTW – it’s EXACTLY this kind of thing that has kept me out of an iPhone, even though I own the stock. I won’t be a party to those who don’t look out for me.
Apple’s tracking social democrats and trade unionists? Holy #%^&!! I’m calling my congresswoman!
But seriously, I do wish I could trust Apple more. There’s a tipping point for positive regard and a tipping point for negative regard, and this kind of story moves me closer to the latter, though they still have lots of capital in my book.
this has been debunked
i am curious, where are all these people like meanguy and MPCguy when the rethugs and bushies started spying on all americans? i mean lets see, your government, who is disappearing people, or a company that appears to be doing nothing with the info they collect. which one is a threat? gosh, i wonder…..
Uh, don’t mean to rain on the paranoia parade here, but unless your phone identifies you (and the stocks you are tracking, and the cities you’ve selected in the weather widget), how are you supposed to get any relavent information. And how is this different from cookies??
I’m afraid Mike K has it right. One way or another the persistent states of these things require that you be tracked. It’s a technical requirement and yes it can be used for evil. (Not that there’s any evidence here that it is.)
This is inherent in the nature of web apps. This is what we are trading for the convenience and economy of ad supported services in the clouds.
Although in the case of data services like these, unless someone is willing to provide free anonymous information, your queries are trackable. And even your IP address is trackable if your ISP cooperates.
“i am curious, where are all these people like meanguy and MPCguy when the rethugs and bushies started spying on all americans?”
I was and am all over that. Have been since before it was in vogue, from 9/11 on, and I’ve paid a fairly dear price for it, especially back then.
It’s part of the reason I’m so disappointed in Apple’s change toward corporate scummieness.
Nice one, Gandalf &9734;
Sheesh, everyone take a pill and go watch Heroes.
I’d be more worried about having a Facebook profile that this.
Marketing purposes? What are they trying to sell me? Another phone?
As Andy Warhol said in Stockholm, 1968:
In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.
Here’s my slight antithesis:
In the future, everyone will want to have 15 minutes of privacy.
ifone isn’t the only Apple thang that spies on you. In OSX 10.4 Tiger an app named SyndicationAgent calls home every time you visit your webmail drop, load Mac Mail or open an Internet browsing session. Prove it for yourself: Install the NetBarrier firewall and list SyndicationAgent in Anti-Vandal/Anti-Spyware; set “Show Bezel Window” in Options, and see what happens. Things will begin to get interesting after that point. . .
Okay, all you conspiracy theorists can sit back and breath deeply, the battle is over. At 11:42 pm EST the story was debunked.
Everyone just chill!
Too much angst about nothing.
@Silverhawk – link please.
Kind of ironic … Apple makes a ground breaking commercial in 1984 for the new Apple Mac, on the concept of “Apple is anti-big brother (ie: Orwell 1984).
Now it looks like Apple is big brother after all. True “double-speak at work!
hey, wake up and realize this is what happens when big corporations have supreme power, its called “fascism”
hey wake up and realize that this has been debunked. all you guys screaming that the sky is falling are wrong. again. it is getting old.
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/15566/
shut. up. already……
I only click “I accept” on license agreements to avoid having to return the product. Any company that sells me software or hardware “implies consent” that I can use the product in any manner I desire after I have traded my labor for their product. It’s their problem if they are unaware that they consented.
Once they sell it to me it is mine. Screw their license agreements.
bq
that is why I will not buy an iPhone , no matter how much I want one.
Boycott Apple and ATT and Anyone who engages in illegal
practices with this psychopathic Nazi regime.
>shen* wrote: all you guys screaming that the sky is falling are wrong. again. it is getting old…. shut. up. already……
Hmmm…. ahhh so it’s a better thing to be completely trusting and not worry protecting privacy? Better to be sorry than safe?
Gotcha, chief! FanBoys have some strange logic (and are generally rude about it at the same time).
—
After this mess, I wonder just how much customer information Apple tracks. I know they keep tabs of customers by their credit card numbers (which is kinda scary already).
“>shen* wrote: all you guys screaming that the sky is falling are wrong. again. it is getting old…. shut. up. already……
Hmmm…. ahhh so it’s a better thing to be completely trusting and not worry protecting privacy? Better to be sorry than safe?
Gotcha, chief! FanBoys have some strange logic (and are generally rude about it at the same time).”
no, i also said:
“since 1) nobody yet has any idea what is being collected or what it is used for, and 2) despite the tinfoil hat group having shown up in the past to gripe about this kind of stuff it has always turned out that Apple has been pretty fair and not used any questionable data or kept personal records (iTunes mini store anyone?) how about i suggest a wild idea:
stop, take a breath, wait to freak out until something is actually known.”
nobody said anything about being completely trusting. what i am saying is that assuming they are spying on you with what amounts to almost zero evidence is paranoid. at the very least try to show that there is a reason to think it is happening BEFORE you freak out.
if you feel that having a reason to act before acting is strange logic, i really can’t help you there.
and if that seems rude, frankly i don’t care. i am going to be elitist about it. sorry. you are NOT entitled to your opinion. you are entitled to your informed opinion. ignorance and failure to think/reason/comprehend always make me rude.
…i am sure you will get used to it. it sounds like you should have plenty of opportunity…..