27 Apr 2011

Big Brother 2.0 on your smartphone?

This is an update to my previous post on both Apple and Google engaging in geo-tracking via smartphone...

The Privacy Rogues Gallery is growing: First Apple, then Google, and now Microsoft...

According to a new article on CNET: "Like Apple and Google, Microsoft collects records of the physical locations of customers who use its mobile operating system.

Windows Phone 7, supported by manufacturers including Dell, HTC, LG, Nokia, and Samsung, transmits to Microsoft a miniature data dump including a unique device ID, details about nearby Wi-Fi networks, and the phone's GPS-derived exact latitude and longitude."


Users of the products didn't have a clue - but apparently the enforcers of "law" have known about it - and have been using it for over a year.

If geo-tracking via mobile phones is so prevalent, and obviously useful for the powers-that-be, it cannot be a technical oversight by the engineers.

So... is it actually a special "service" created by corporations for the state? If it is, how does the state apparatus pay back the corporations? And are there more such secretive "arrangements" between the political class and the business class?

And just one other question: Is this Big Brother 2.0?

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