The Dangers Of Companies Spying On Your Mobile Phone Activity

December 16, 2011 · 0 

Just recently is has become known that on most of the cell phones that are out on the market there may be spying activity going on. This alleged spying activity is not done by the bad guys but by large corporations. Large corporations like to know a lot of data points about their customers so some of the biggest cell phone providers in the country may have decided that they needed to install software in their phones that gave them these data points. It is in all of the top phones which include the IPhone, Android, and even some of the Windows phones on the market. There has recently been some revelations about Carrier IQ and this revelation has some people in an uproar (though it now seems things may not be as sinister as first thought). But is this the only time that companies do an action like this?
On the internet, there are a lot of ways for a company to spy on you when you are both on and off their web site. Some of the methods are legal while others are in what you would call an ethical grey area. They use different internet technologies that allow them to be able to track you so that they can market to you better. In a lot of cases this leads to you having a better overall experience when you are on their web site. But is this experience worth having your privacy invaded?
Now with the app economy starting to hit full swing, companies are finding other ways to be able to spy on you now as well. And again, just like with the internet, these methods are in a grey area as well. But this time, a company may be able to get even more information from you by using the GPS features of your phone. With this feature they are able to not only see what you are interested in when you surf the web but they can also take it to the next level by seeing where you go as well. All of this data is then stored on a database and then sent back to the company. For this to work you have to agree to the settings on the program. So in a way you are giving permission for this type of activity to happen.
So the question now is should you be worried? The answer is that you probably should not go into full scale panic mode but you do need to be more careful in the items that you download and install on your phone. You do not want just anyone to be able to track your movements and your purchasing activities