Smart Phone Social Apps Can Harvest Contacts - News Story

Most apps at least record what you look at. Many record who calls you. they may be free, but there is a cost.

Really, why else would they give them away?
 
CameraQuest said:
see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17051910

"Phone apps by social sites including Facebook, FourSquare, Instagram, Foodspotting and Yelp are also reported to access the address book." and Twitter as well

Have your friends been harvested today?

Stephen
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Why am I not surprised?
Maybe it was instinct, but things like that are the reason I own neither a smartphone nor a social network account... 😎
 
Twitter has said it will update its privacy policy to be more explicit.
The practice came to light when an app developer in Singapore, Arun Thampi, noticed that his contacts had been copied from his iPhone address book without his consent by a social network called Path.
Dave Morin, CEO of Path, apologised and said Path would ask users to opt in to share their contact information.
However, he noted separately that it was an "industry best practice" to upload or import address book information.
🙂 🙂 🙂
 
Dan, you're probably writing about the bigger picture, but to address your two examples: multiple e-mail accounts help cut down on spam to the personal account; and most browsers nowadays can delete cookies for the session. If you let us know which browser you're using, I, or anyone else, can you walk you through how to set the latter.
 
The issue is 2 fold, one that on ios devices, they don't technically have to ask you to opt in to get your contacts info. This is bad, and possibly something apple can rectify in the future. on android devices, these same apps, upon installing you, tell you what they have access to.

2nd, path didn't store the contact data in an encrypted form, but they did ssl encrypt it over the wire. most data thefts are on the server side, and not over the wire. In any case, path has apologized, deleted contact info from their servers, promised opt in controls for all platforms, and alerted folks about other apps that may grab contact info on the IOS platform without telling you.
 
Yes

Yes

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012...address-books-announces-privacy-improvements/

Correct about Gmail, but Google has no need to apologize, as when you sign up, it clearly state's it's storing your whole email contents for machine readable advertising profile purposes, probably perpetually.

If you have a jailbroken iphone, there's an app/tweak that will notify you of any apps that attempt to access your contacts.


PKR said:
If one of your friends has an iPhone + Twitter package with your number in the memory, I think you (and I) may be in their db.

Gmail copies the addresses of all exchanges, including all non Gmail accounts. If someone using Gmail sends you mail, Google has your address.

Please correct me if I'm in error..


pkr
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