Windows Phone 7 "tracks your movements," says lawsuit

By Richi Jennings (@richi ) - September 2, 2011.
 
A lawsuit alleges the the Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Windows Phone 7 operating system tracks users' location without permission. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers get deja-vu all over again.
 
Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment. Not to mention: Airplane Automation: A thought-provoking post from Captain Dave...
 
 
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes reports:

The lawsuit, filed at the...Western District of Washington...claims that the [camera] app sends location-based information...back to Microsoft even when users had opted out...despite Microsoft telling Congress that no data would be collected without user consent.
...
The lawsuit has been filed on behalf of Rebecca Cousineau, a...user, and seeks “injunction and punitive damages, among other remedies.” Microsoft has so far declined to comment.   

    
Brid-Aine Parnell adds background:

Worries about how much info smartphones collect and how the...technology industry use[s] that info were kicked into high gear in April, when...researchers said the iPhone kept track of everywhere you went. ... After the story broke, US lawmakers started a probe...and sent letters to Apple, Microsoft and other mobile OS developers...asking for information on location data on their phones and tablets.
...
Today's suit...claims that Microsoft transmits...coordinates, a unique ID and nearby Wi-Fi access points [via] the camera application...even when the user has not given it permission.   

 
And Alex Wilhelm connects the dots:

The core of the issue is interesting. Microsoft claims to only collect geodata when a user provides permission. ... [The alleged behavior] sounds, on the face of it, malicious. If the...function is a mistake, or is perhaps an accidental legacy artifact, [that] might provide Microsoft some cover.
...
Microsoft had no comment to share.   

 
But something jingles in the back of Sandy Fitzgerald's memory:

The class action suit comes just a few weeks after [Microsoft] said it improved location filtering, so its phones and laptops no longer return exact locations...follow[ing] a report from Stanford security researcher Elie Bursztein, who alleged Windows devices...pinpointed peoples' past locations.
...
But while location tracking is under fire...location tracking will likely continue. ... Many app developers are small businesses. ... Their apps collect user data...which they sell to advertising networks who use the data to target their products. ... [C]ustomers may need to decide whether privacy or less-expensive apps are more important.   

      
  
And Finally...
Airplane Automation: A thought-provoking post from Captain Dave
  
 
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Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and security. He's the creator and main author of Computerworld's IT Blogwatch -- for which he has won American Society of Business Publication Editors and Jesse H. Neal awards on behalf of Computerworld. He also writes The Long View for IDG Enterprise. A cross-functional IT geek since 1985, you can follow him as @richi on Twitter, pretend to be richij's friend on Facebook, or just use good old email: itbw@richij.com. You can also read Richi's full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.