http://www.mobileburn.com/news.jsp?Id=12125 With in-application advertising going mainstream, it comes as no real surprise to learn that our apps are, more or less, tattle-tales. The Wall Street Journal did an investigation into the world of smartphone apps and found out that many of our favorite apps, like Paper Toss and TextPlus 4, are telling advertisers all about us.
The Journal tested 101 popular apps from both the Apple iOS and Google Android platforms to see which apps were reporting personal data to advertisers, and what data exactly was being sent.
Over half of the applications sent the phone's unique identification number to other companies without user consent, and just under half sent data on the phone's location. Roughly 5 percent of the apps tested went so far as to report age and gender information to outside companies.
The Journal's investigation is a somewhat long and scary read, but it's worth your time.
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