你的手機在偷窺你的隱私
Few devices know more personal details about people than the smartphones in their pockets: phone numbers, current location, often the owner's real name even a unique ID number that can never be changed or turned off。
These phones don't keep secrets. They are sharing this personal data widely and regularly, a Wall Street Journal investigation has examination of 101 popular smartphone 'apps' games and other software showed that 56 transmitted the phone's unique device ID to other companies without users' awareness or consent. Five sent age, gender and other personal details to outsiders。
The findings reveal the intrusive effort by online-tracking companies to gather personal data about people in order to flesh out detailed dossiers on them。
The versions of Pandora, a popular music app, sent age, gender, location and phone identifiers to various ad networks. A game called Paper Toss players try to throw paper wads into a trash can each sent the phone's ID number to at least five ad companies. Grindr, an iPhone app for meeting gay men, sent gender, location and phone ID to three ad companies。
'In the world of mobile, there is no anonymity,' says Michael Becker of the Mobile Marketing Association. A cellphone is 'always with us. It's always on.'
Cellphone company says it reviews each app before offering it to users. Both Apple and Google say they protect users by requiring apps to obtain permission before revealing certain kinds of information, such as location。
'We have created strong privacy protections for our customers, especially regarding location-based data,' says one cellphone company. 'Privacy and trust are vitally important.'
The Journal found that these rules can be skirted。
沒什麼裝置能比智慧手機更瞭解使用者的隱私了：電話號碼、當前位置、使用者的真實姓名(在很多情況下)──甚至手機獨一無二的、永遠不能改變或關掉的序列號資訊。 《華爾街日報》的一項調查發現，這些手機並不懂得守口如瓶，它們廣泛而定期地共用這些私人資訊。對101個熱門的智慧手機“應用程式”(遊戲和其他軟體程式)所做的測試表明，有56個應用程式在使用者不知情或未經其許可的情況下把手機獨有的序列號資訊傳輸出去，其中5個甚至向外界傳送使用者的年齡、性別和其他個人資訊。
這些事實表明，網際網路資訊跟蹤公司正在肆無忌憚地收集人們的私人資訊，目的是形成詳盡的使用者檔案。
其中，一個熱門音樂應用程式“潘朵拉”(Pandora)會把使用者的年齡、性別、位置和手機序列號傳送給各個廣告網路公司。“扔紙團”(Paper Toss) 遊戲──即在熒屏上讓玩家把紙團扔到一個垃圾桶裡──會把手機序列號至少傳送給5家公司。一個男同性戀交友應用程式Grindr將使用者性別、位置和手機序列號傳送給3家廣告公司。
行業組織“手機行銷協會”的邁克爾·貝克表示，在手機的世界裡，沒有匿名這一說。手機永遠跟隨我們，永遠保持連線狀態。
手機生產廠家表示，公司在把應用程式推向使用者前會逐一進行稽核。蘋果和谷歌公司都表示，他們保護使用者隱私資訊，要求應用程式在向外界傳送位置等特定型別的資訊前，必須徵求使用者的許可。
一家手機生產商說，我們為顧客提供了很強的隱私保護措施，尤其是在有關位置的資料方面。隱私和信任極其重要。
《華爾街日報》的調查發現，這些隱私保護措施都是可以繞過去的。
