No Reason for Concern Here

Well, just when I thought I was losing my edge, the news brought it back once again.  This happened to be run on the local news about a "new feature" of the latest edition of iOS.  I'm not going to give away anything more than that right now, you'll just have to check out the rest of the post.


So the latest iteration of the iPhone has definitely had it share of issues.  But what I'm going to talk about right now isn't a problem with the functionality of the phone or OS.  The issue is that by default when you start using your new iPhone 5, or your software upgraded older phone, you are being tracked.  This tracking isn't just tracking your location again like the last time.  Nope, they are tracking just about everything that you do in order to sell the information to advertisers.  That's right, they are tracking everything you do in order to deliver targeted ads to you.  But the "experts" say that you shouldn't have to worry because Apple claims that they use a number that in no way identifies you.

Sound familiar?  It should, it is called a cookie when it is used in a browser on your computer.  How much do you trust cookies?  If I had to guess I would say you don't.  There are many ways in which to remove or prevent cookies from being placed on your computer.  But beyond that you may also remember everyone going crazy earlier in the year when Google changed it's privacy policies.  In that Google basically stated that they will do this unless you tell them that you don't want them to.  The "experts" then said it was a really bad thing.

So what is different when Apple started doing this?  My guess is that it is Apple and the media is fascinated with them.  It is just another example of just how biased the media is.  And I think some of the proof on that is the fact that this was only a local news story.

Pass it along because I'm sure your Apple toting friends aren't aware of this nor desire to have it happen.  And let me know what you think.  Do you agree with the "experts" that it isn't a big deal because it's Apple or do you agree with me that it should concern people as much as when Google did it?