Phone Data Used to Fill Digital Map
SAN FRANCISCO — You may not know it, but if you carry a smartphone in your pocket, you are probably doing unpaid work for Apple or Google — and helping them eventually aim more advertising directly at you.
As those two companies battle for dominance in mobile computing, they have increasingly been using their customers’ phones as sensors to collect data about nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi hot spots.
A program that you dont want doing stuff to help someone else , running on your equipment , is considered mal-ware. (virus or trojen) and should be removed.
So when exactly did Apple gain the right to put mal-ware on the devices it's selling to you ?
Google and Apple use this data to improve the accuracy of everything on the phone that uses location. That includes maps and navigation services, but also advertising aimed at people in a particular spot — a potentially huge business that is just getting off the ground. In fact, the information has become so valuable that the companies have been willing to push the envelope on privacy to collect it.
Loosely translated : We can make money at this , so to heck with the customers were actually selling equipment to.
The use of this data by the companies has been under scrutiny since last week, when two technology researchers reported that a file stored on many iPhones and iPads keeps track of all the locations visited by a user. The file is unencrypted and is copied to people’s personal computers when they sync their devices.
Ever get the feeling you're being watched ? Do you mind that the next time the super attendant changes the light bulb in your bathroom he puts in one that tracks everyone's movement in there ? Really , it only uses a little extra electricity but it's worth so much money to people with certain ... tastes....
Ok, maybe a tasteless comparison , some would say. But certain things are indisputable. Advertising works. Otherwise they wouldn't be spending so much money on it. And Advertising makes you buy stuff you really shouldn't buy , so you can consider it a hostile activity.
And helping to construct an advertising system that's going to be aimed directly at you , using your equipment , and not telling you about it ... thats hostile. We have enough junk mail in our in boxes (and in our real mail boxes) We don't need to add to the load we need to subtract from it.
But they have decided there's money to be made , so they're gonna sneak this in and hope no one notices.
Just like a virus writer does.
And for exactly the same reasons too.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
News or Propaganda ?
Liberal health care ads may be working
Liberal attack ads warning that the Conservatives harbour a secret agenda to cut health care funding appear to be having their intended affect.
A new poll that looks at how Canadians view the leadership abilities of those running for prime minister suggests that voters’ assessments of Stephen Harper have dropped since the Liberals went negative in their television advertising this weekend.
The survey of 400 voters conducted Saturday for Nanos Research, indicates that the Conservative Leader’s numbers on the leadership index score fell to 91.6 from 105.4.
In the globe and mail they ran a "news" article. And I question the news part significantly. The article basically picked a poll of 400 voters (a thousand is considered the requirement for reasonably accuracy) and trumpeted the results as if it were indisputable and inevitable victory for the Liberals.
What they should have done is lamented that dirty tricks like spinning baseless conspiracy theories have no place in an election.
What they should have done was point out the sample size of the poll was too small.
what they should have done was at least point out the poll is considered accurate to + or minus X % 19 times out of 20 , but they skipped that.
What they did was trumpet it as an inevitable victory for the Liberals , and made no attempt to paint the Conservatives as anything but villians secretly trying to destroy canada.
The Globe and Mail is not a neutril bystander. They have quite obviously picked a side.
And that is the true tragedy here.
This newspaper isn't selling us news anymore. It's now preaching and propagandizing to us , and expecting us to pay for it.
Liberal attack ads warning that the Conservatives harbour a secret agenda to cut health care funding appear to be having their intended affect.
A new poll that looks at how Canadians view the leadership abilities of those running for prime minister suggests that voters’ assessments of Stephen Harper have dropped since the Liberals went negative in their television advertising this weekend.
The survey of 400 voters conducted Saturday for Nanos Research, indicates that the Conservative Leader’s numbers on the leadership index score fell to 91.6 from 105.4.
In the globe and mail they ran a "news" article. And I question the news part significantly. The article basically picked a poll of 400 voters (a thousand is considered the requirement for reasonably accuracy) and trumpeted the results as if it were indisputable and inevitable victory for the Liberals.
What they should have done is lamented that dirty tricks like spinning baseless conspiracy theories have no place in an election.
What they should have done was point out the sample size of the poll was too small.
what they should have done was at least point out the poll is considered accurate to + or minus X % 19 times out of 20 , but they skipped that.
What they did was trumpet it as an inevitable victory for the Liberals , and made no attempt to paint the Conservatives as anything but villians secretly trying to destroy canada.
The Globe and Mail is not a neutril bystander. They have quite obviously picked a side.
And that is the true tragedy here.
This newspaper isn't selling us news anymore. It's now preaching and propagandizing to us , and expecting us to pay for it.
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