It was definitely the year of smartphone applications, and no app was bigger than the decidedly loopy "Angry Birds" developed and published by Rovio Mobile Ltd. This uber-addictive game of egg-napped birds vs. thefty pigs is meant to be easily played in the checkout line and during other short windows of downtime – but some players have trouble stopping.
According to Rovio, people racked up well over 200 million minutes of playtime with Angry Birds, making it the biggest time suck in 2010. And, you know what, it was fun. And profitable too, being the top paid app at the App Store - selling over 12 million copies at $0.99 each.
The addictive iPhone app asks for permission to access a user’s location, but a Wall Street Journal investigation says it’s harvesting – and delivering – much more. Your contacts, city, latitude and longitude, phone ID and username and password are all collected and sent to third parties.
The report says that most of those great iPhone or Android apps you couldn’t imagine living without are actually spying on you – selling all kinds of personal information you input to companies so they can target their ads specifically to you.
The study found that of 101 apps tested, 56 transmitted the phone’s individual number to a private company in some way, known as the Unique Device Identifier or UDID. Some, including the Pandora app also sent off the information they collected at registration, including name, gender and age. Netflix doesn’t ask for a location permission, but it does harvest your zip code. The Facebook iPhone app doesn’t send data to any third parties, but it accesses all your contacts without asking for permission to see your address book.
There is nothing illegal about these activities though, since whether you read the fine print or not, by installing these iPhone or Android apps you are in effect agreeing to these practices and "opting in” to these lists. The best advice for anyone who does not want their personal info sent out is to read all the terms and conditions before downloading any app to make sure you really do agree with them.
Sources:
1. Scott Thurm and Yukari Iwantani Kane, "Your Apps Are Watching You," The Wall Street Journal, December 18, 2010
2. Jenna Wortham, "Angy Birds, Flocking To Cellphones Everywhere," The New York Times, December 11, 2010
3. Howard Wolinsky, "Why 2010 Was The Year Of The App," Appolicious Advisor, December 28, 2010
