A few days ago I reported that from now on, to get into the iPhone App store you must allow Apple to share your phone or tablet device fingerprints and detailed, dynamic location information with anyone it pleases. No chance to vet the purposes for which your location data is being used. No way to know who it is going to.
As incredible as it sounds in 2010, no user control. Not even transparency. Just one thing is for sure. If privacy isn't dead, Apple is now amongst those trying to bury it alive.
Then today, just when I thought Apple had gone as far as it could go in this particular direction, a new version of iTunes wanted to install itself on my laptop. What do you know? It had a new privacy policy too…
The new iTunes policy was snappier than the iPhone policy – it came to the point – sort of – in the 5th paragraph rather than the 37th page!
5. iTunes Store and other Services. This software enables access to Apple's iTunes Store which offers downloads of music for sale and other services (collectively and individually, “Services”). Use of the Services requires Internet access and use of certain Services requires you to accept additional terms of service which will be presented to you before you can use such Services.
By using this software in connection with an iTunes Store account, you agree to the latest iTunes Store Terms of Service, which you may access and review from the home page of the iTunes Store.
I shuddered. Mind bend! A level of indirection in a privacy policy!
Imagine: “Our privacy policy is that you need to read another privacy policy.” This makes it much more likely that people will figure out what they're getting into, don't you think? Besides, it is a really novel application of the proposition that all problems of computer science can be solved through a level of indirection! Bravo!
But then – the coup de grace. The privacy policy to which Apple redirects you is… are you ready… the same one we came across a few days ago at the App Store! So once again you need to get to the equivalent of page 37 of 45 to read:
Collection and Use of Non-Personal Information
We also collect non-personal information – data in a form that does not permit direct association with any specific individual. We may collect, use, transfer, and disclose non-personal information for any purpose. The following are some examples of non-personal information that we collect and how we may use it:
- We may collect information such as occupation, language, zip code, area code, unique device identifier, location, and the time zone where an Apple product is used so that we can better understand customer behavior and improve our products, services, and advertising.
The mind bogggggles. What does downloading a song have to do with giving away your location???
Some may remember my surprise that the Lords of The iPhone would call its unique device identifier – and its location – “non-personal data”. Non-personal implies there is no strong relationship to the person who is using it. I wrote:
The irony here is a bit fantastic. I was, after all, using an “iPhone”. I assume Apple’s lawyers are aware there is an ”I” in the word “iPhone”. We’re not talking here about a piece of shared communal property that might be picked up by anyone in the village. An iPhone is carried around by its owner. If a link is established between the owner’s natural identity and the device (as Google’s databases have done), its “unique device identifier” becomes a digital fingerprint for the person using it.
Anybody who thinks about identity understands that a “personal device” is associated with (even an extension of) the person who uses it. But most people – including technical people – don't give these matters the slightest thought.
A parade of tech companies have figured out how to use peoples’ ignorance about digital identity to get away with practices letting them track what we do from morning to night in the physical world. But of course, they never track people, they only track their personal devices! Those unruly devices really have a mind of their own – you definitely need central databases to keep tabs on where they're going.
I was therefore really happy to read some of Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s recent speech to the American Society of News Editors. Talking about mobility he made a number of statements that begin to explain the ABCs of what mobile devices are about:
Google is making the Android phone, we have the Kindle, of course, and we have the iPad. Each of these form factors with the tablet represent in many ways your future….: they’re personal. They’re personal in a really fundamental way. They know who you are. So imagine that the next version of a news reader will not only know who you are, but it’ll know what you’ve read…and it’ll be more interactive. And it’ll have more video. And it’ll be more real-time. Because of this principle of “now.”
It is good to see Eric sharing the actual truth about personal devices with a group of key influencers. This stands in stark contrast to the silly fibs about phones and laptops being non-personal that are being handed down in the iTunes Store, the iPhone App Store, and in the “Refresher FAQ” Fantasyland Google created in response to its Street View WiFi shenanigans.
As the personal phone evolves it will become increasingly obvious that groups within some of our best tech companies have built businesses based on consciously crafted privacy fibs. I'm amazed at the short-sightedness involved: folks, we're talking about a “BP moment”. History teaches us that “There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious.” [Francis Bacon] And statements that your personal device doesn't identify you and that location is not personal information are precisely “false and perfidious.”
