
South Korea, Europe start iPhone location tracking investigations - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/04/south-korea-europe-start-iphone-location-tracking-investigations.ars
======
korussian
I don't know about Europe, but walking around South Korea three years ago, it
was a sea of Samsungs and LGs on every man, woman, child, and senior. Today,
if a university student isn't sporting an iPhone 4 (not 3Gs, since that's last
year's model), then it's because they're getting one next month or next
semester.

Nevertheless, South Koreans are fiercely loyal to national brands and
companies (chaebol - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaebol>), so it sets up
quite a quandary:

Do I get a better (often cheaper) smart phone that carries more cachet, or do
I get a pretty-good locally-made phone that's loaded down with features that I
don't really use much and for which I have to pay extra (Nate/June/DMBtv)?

It seems that almost universally Koreans have put aside their intense
nationalism and national-brand loyalty (you'd be amazed how intense) and opted
for the foreign-made cachet-carrier. That, with the exception of the Galaxy S,
which is doing great and being promoted heavily on (literally) every busy
street corner. I do mean literally, not "literally".

All of this to conclude that now, South Korea sees a huge chink in iPhone's
armour, just like Naver and Daum saw a chink in Google's armor a couple of
weeks ago. This is a chance to put down the foreigner brands and promote
national brands anew. The thinking being: "let's go for it and see what we can
get out of this."

------
ares2012
Companies like Google and Apple have been eager to collect data on the GPS
locations of cell towers, wifi access points and other network locations. In
fact, there are entire companies (Skyhook <http://skyhook.com>) that drive
cars around major cities mapping these things.

Why? So that their mobile applications can provide you location even if you
don't have GPS. GPS doesn't work inside, GPS doesn't always work in big cities
with a ton of buildings. Providing you location without requiring GPS is big
money.

Unfortunately the cheapest way to gather this data is through crowd-sourcing.
By having every iPhone record this data they could, in theory, help provide
you location when GPS isn't available.

I don't know if that's why Apple is doing this now but I hope someone finds
out. I'm all for location based services but using people without their
knowledge seems like a bad way to go about it.

~~~
Apocryphon
Having every iPhone unknowingly record location data? All I know is that this
is somehow leading us to the dystopian present portrayed in The Dark Knight.

------
vidiviciveni
Apple: We 'must have' user location data.
[http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/137432/20110423/apple-we-
mus...](http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/137432/20110423/apple-we-must-have-
comprehensive-user-location-data-on-you.htm)

This feels like one giant leap towards big brother watching you. I personally
decided against purchasing Apple products because of this. I'm glad to see
countries are investigating this clear invasion of privacy.

~~~
Xuzz
(Do note that Android devices, as well, transmit their location back to Google
regularly:
[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870398370457627...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703983704576277101723453610.html))

