i-Phone could be Spying on You

Many of the i-Phone apps are secretly spying on users of those apps...!!!, SCARY, but true.

Recently, Palm came under fire when programmer Joey Hess discovered the Pre's smartphone OS was sending users' GPS locations back to Palm on a daily basis. Although this information was disclosed in the company's privacy policy, the majority of the phone's owners were unaware. The incident raised questions about consumer privacy and the extent to which both handset makers and developers were gathering data on mobile users.

Now it is the turn of i-Phone users to know little about matters they need to concern before download and use some of the apps.

More than half of the programmes and games for smartphones sent data back to the private company once they had been downloaded, a study has found. 

It found that of the 101 applications tested, 56 transmitted the phone's individual number to a private company in some way, known as the Unique Device Identifier or UDID. 

Some 47 sent the phone's location and five sent age, gender and other personal information, reports the Daily Mail. 

The applications include the wildly popular Angry Birds game and music identifying software Shazam, which comes pre-installed on every iPhone. 

Armed with this information, firms, including Google, track the individuals' movements and sell personalised ad for which they can make more money than regular ones. 

It will be interesting to see what the fall out of this is. Some very popular applications are on WSJs list, and this could be a major PR blunder for the companies that provide the software along with Apple and Google for allowing these apps in the market in the first place.

The study may be conducted in USA, but anyone could be affected who is downloading the software around the world.