Google and Apple Make Mobile Privacy an Oxymoron

Google and Apple talk up security, however recent disclosures serve as a painful reminder of how much control mobile phone users give up when they power on their handsets.

The very nature of cloud-based software is that we're sharing our content with a remote server. Google, Apple, and other companies just reminded us of how much we trust our content security, nevertheless the writing has been on the wall for a during.

How many users keep their address book on a server provided by Apple, Google, Microsoft, or RIM, the maker of the ubiquitous Blackberry? Phones may be packing more memory than ever, nevertheless the fragileness of mobile devices makes us more apt to access our precious data remotely as opposed to a memory card or the device itself.

Compared to home computers, phones as well have more companies involved in the data processing chain, limiting users' ability to know who's accessing their information and, more importantly, what they're doing with it.

The example of Carrier IQ

Take the example of Carrier IQ, the performance monitoring software installed on millions of phones. Last year, security expert Trevor Eckhart discovered the software was tracking everything you did with your phone, from web browsing to keystrokes. Worse, when the four major carriers were confronted, each had a different explanation for why the software was there and what they were doing with the sensitive information. As PC World's Jared Newman put it, we deserve a straight answer on Carrier IQ. Months later, it's however unclear how much damage was done by the software.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Google successfully bypassed Apple's Safari's mobile security and tracked millions of iPhone, iPod, and iPad users. Google kept a web cookie hidden in an online ad, like the Google +1 button, and it would drop when the user pressed the icon. As PC World reported, the quiet cookie would live so then beyond the 12 to 24 hours a regular cookie would survive and allow Google to get valuable user habit information.

And previously this week, Apple was asked by the U.S. government if its approved apps fell short of protecting user data. The social networking app Path was caught uploading whole address books without permission, nevertheless users realized that Facebook, Twitter, and other popular apps have been doing the same thing all along.

After the nudge by lawmakers in Washington, Apple right away enforced its policy, requiring all iOS apps to update their permissions, nevertheless why wasn't it enforcing it to begin with? It's probably the same reason why Google has been secretly tracking us: In these days of voluntary information sharing, it believes it can get away with it.