Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Your address book is mine: Many iPhone apps take your data | VentureBeat

Ew…

Path got caught red-handed uploading users’ address books to its servers and had to apologize. But the relatively obscure journaling app is not alone. In fact, Path was crucified for a practice that has become an unspoken industry standard.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare, Foodspotting, Yelp, and Gowalla are among a smattering of iOS applications that have been sending the actual names, email addresses and/or phone numbers from your device’s internal address book to their servers, VentureBeat has learned. Several do so without first asking permission, and Instagram and Foursquare only added permissions prompts after the Path flare-up.

Some of these companies deny storing the personal data, as Path was doing, but the transmission alone makes the private data susceptible to would-be intercepters.

Perhaps most concerning, however, is that these app makers could mask the real names, phone numbers, and email addresses during the transmission process, protecting your privacy in the process, but choose not to.

Your address book is mine: Many iPhone apps take your data | VentureBeat

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