Letters of Mass Construction

Naughty, Naughty, Apple

You ever get the strange, creeping sensation that someone is watching you? You quickly turn around and look but no one is there. The feeling lingers in the pit of your stomach leaving you paranoid and uneasy. Well, I am here to tell you that you are not crazy. Your every move is being watched by some damn piece of technology.

The latest spy master is the ever so customer friendly company of Apple. You know the Apple that cares about its image. The top rated customer service company for the last 8 billion years (at least that’s what their hype wants you to believe). Turns out their iPhone, iPad, and iTouch have been tracking your location, time stamping it, and keeping it in a database which is backed up and saved in iTunes (even if you turn off location services in the system preferences).

Apple in its usual manner has addressed this problem head on by saying absolutely nothing. There have been a couple of websites who say that they have a reliable source that this is a bug and will be fixed but these same web sites had reliable sources there would be an iPad 3 this year. I wouldn’t put much stock into it until Lord Jobs speaks.

Don’t for a minute be fooled into thinking Apple is the only one doing this. I guarantee you Google and most other smart phones are tracking you (this is why Google and Apple were called before the Senate). It is by the way not a hard guarantee to make since there is an actual law on the books (been there since 2001. I will let you do the math on why)  requiring cell phones to track people. So don’t buy the stupid Senate grand standing like they give a shit about our privacy. If they had their way we would have even less.

Where Apple may sink a little bit into the quicksand is the backing up the database. If you have opted out of applications knowing where you are, I am not sure why it is backing it up on your computer. I wish I could have a better understanding of the problem but of course Lord Jobs has super glued his workers lips shut until he can figure out the best way to spin this.

Privacy is shot in the technology world. It doesn’t help that we seem to live in an opt out world where companies can do whatever they want with your data until you opt out. (Seriously, people if you have a DVR it is collecting your TV watching information unless you opt out. Nothing is private). We have a government that carves whole chunks of your freedom off without a second thought (if you haven’t flown in airport with full body scanners you are in for a treat and when I say treat I mean a complete violation of your privacy).

I must admit of all the companies to get caught with their hand in our privacy cookie jar, I am the most disappointed by Apple. It has built its company on the back of their customer-friendly reputation. I am not naive. I know a lot of it is PR but a lot of it hasn’t been. If this is a bug I am sure Lord Jobs will be screaming “off with their heads” soon and some unlucky executive will be falling on his sword. If it isn’t a bug, well they will pretend it is and the same thing will happen. In the meantime, our government will put on a good song and dance show about how much they care and nothing will change. It’s our own fault really. We opened the doors and invited big brother right in.

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