Posts tagged Issue
Apple Finally Responds to iPhone Location Tracking Issue
Apr 27th
It’s been a week since data scientists Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden published their discovery that the iPhone has been keeping track of users’ locations and storing the data – unencrypted – on the phone as well as any machine with which you sync the device.
Although the news spread like wildfire, Apple has remained silent until now. The company has finally issued a statement on its collection and use of location data. We’ve reprinted the press release in full below.
Apple insists it is not tracking the location of your iPhone. “Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.” It maintains that what Warden and Allan found was a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and celltowers around your current location, information that will help your iPhone quickly calculate your location when requested.
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Despite insisting that it’s innocent of any accusations of tracking users, Apple says it plans to issue a software update soon that will change how much data is stored (just seven days’ worth, which will be encrypted), will end caching this data when the device is synced, and will actually cease if users turn off location services.
In the end, Apple seems to be agreeing with what we first thought of the consolidated.db file: more negligence than nefariousness.
Apple would like to respond to the questions we have recently received about the gathering and use of location information by our devices.
1. Why is Apple tracking the location of my iPhone?
Apple is not tracking the location of your iPhone. Apple has never done so and has no plans to ever do so.
2. Then why is everyone so concerned about this?
Providing mobile users with fast and accurate location information while preserving their security and privacy has raised some very complex technical issues which are hard to communicate in a soundbite. Users are confused, partly because the creators of this new technology (including Apple) have not provided enough education about these issues to date.
3. Why is my iPhone logging my location?
The iPhone is not logging your location. Rather, it’s maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested. Calculating a phone’s location using just GPS satellite data can take up to several minutes. iPhone can reduce this time to just a few seconds by using Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data to quickly find GPS satellites, and even triangulate its location using just Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data when GPS is not available (such as indoors or in basements). These calculations are performed live on the iPhone using a crowd-sourced database of Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data that is generated by tens of millions of iPhones sending the geo-tagged locations of nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers in an anonymous and encrypted form to Apple.
4. Is this crowd-sourced database stored on the iPhone?
The entire crowd-sourced database is too big to store on an iPhone, so we download an appropriate subset (cache) onto each iPhone. This cache is protected but not encrypted, and is backed up in iTunes whenever you back up your iPhone. The backup is encrypted or not, depending on the user settings in iTunes. The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone. We plan to cease backing up this cache in a software update coming soon (see Software Update section below).
5. Can Apple locate me based on my geo-tagged Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?
No. This data is sent to Apple in an anonymous and encrypted form. Apple cannot identify the source of this data.
6. People have identified up to a year’s worth of location data being stored on the iPhone. Why does my iPhone need so much data in order to assist it in finding my location today?
This data is not the iPhone’s location data–it is a subset (cache) of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database which is downloaded from Apple into the iPhone to assist the iPhone in rapidly and accurately calculating location. The reason the iPhone stores so much data is a bug we uncovered and plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below). We don’t think the iPhone needs to store more than seven days of this data.
7. When I turn off Location Services, why does my iPhone sometimes continue updating its Wi-Fi and cell tower data from Apple’s crowd-sourced database?
It shouldn’t. This is a bug, which we plan to fix shortly (see Software Update section below).
8. What other location data is Apple collecting from the iPhone besides crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower data?
Apple is now collecting anonymous traffic data to build a crowd-sourced traffic database with the goal of providing iPhone users an improved traffic service in the next couple of years.
9. Does Apple currently provide any data collected from iPhones to third parties?
We provide anonymous crash logs from users that have opted in to third-party developers to help them debug their apps. Our iAds advertising system can use location as a factor in targeting ads. Location is not shared with any third party or ad unless the user explicitly approves giving the current location to the current ad (for example, to request the ad locate the Target store nearest them).
10. Does Apple believe that personal information security and privacy are important?
Yes, we strongly do. For example, iPhone was the first to ask users to give their permission for each and every app that wanted to use location. Apple will continue to be one of the leaders in strengthening personal information security and privacy.
Software Update
Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that:
- reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone
- ceases backing up this cache, and
- deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.
In the next major iOS software release the cache will also be encrypted on the iPhone.
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Feds Go All In Against Online Poker Sites, Seize Domains, Issue Warrants
Apr 19th
If you are an online poker player using PokerStars.com, you would have found the site had been seized Friday and a Department of Justice notice was there in place of your normal access page. While online gambling has been illegal in the United States for five years under the UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) that prohibited online gambling sites to operate in the United States and financial institutions from transferring money to or from any online gambling operation, there has been a push to legalize it recently.
Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker were also seized on what bloggers and marketers of online poker services are calling Black Friday,
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Italians Issue Another Dubious Anti-Search Decision
Mar 24th
Earlier this year the Italian Communications Authority decided that YouTube was effectively a TV broadcaster and imposed the same rules and restrictions that apply to TV in Italy — and potential penalties for their violation — on Google. It said that Google is now legally responsible…
Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.
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Exploring Marketing 2.0 Techniques Other Than SEO in February’s Issue of … – PRLog.Org (press release)
Feb 4th
 Marketwire (press release) |
Exploring Marketing 2.0 Techniques Other Than SEO in February's Issue of …
PRLog.Org (press release) African Business Review (http://www.africanbusinessreview.co.za)calculates the cost of simply relying on SEO and discovers the techniques a top African … Exploring Marketing 2.0 Techniques Other Than SEO in February's Issue of … |
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89% Find Search Engines Do Good Job Finding Information, But “Noise” Is Issue
Jan 15th
Has Google’s relevancy gotten worse? A recent opinion poll suggests not, while at the same time confirming a concern that’s been rising in anecdotal accounts — there’s too much “noise” surrounding the “signal.” Rasmussen Reports surveyed 740 adult…
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Ramsay’s Web Wire – Issue #40: Sleet, Snow and SEO – Moovin On Up (blog)
Dec 3rd
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Ramsay's Web Wire – Issue #40: Sleet, Snow and SEO
Moovin On Up (blog) In the mean time however, I've kept myself sane with a combination of good old fashioned SEO news and talking to Jimmy the Wizard. He's Invisible! … Google AdWords Wants Your Products! |
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Google Approves Anti-Google Ad Despite AdWords Trademark Issue
Sep 13th
Almost all Google AdWords advertisers know that bidding on some keywords are off limits. One of those keywords is [google] and typically you won’t see any ads for a search containing the word [google], unless the ad is from Google.
However, recently Google has allowed an anti-Google ad to be shown. CNet reports the [...]
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