Saturday, January 19, 2013

Hmmm, why does this not surprise me?

Inaugural 2013 has some curious app permissions | Android Central
The Presidential Inauguration is next Monday, and I was all geared up to tell everyone about the Inaugural 2013 app from AT&T and PIC. It's a beautifully done application, has received rave reviews from the folks who have installed it and looks like it would be really helpful for anyone going to the festivities over the weekend as well as the Inauguration itself. But as Politico notes, there's a bit of a thing here -- according to the application's privacy policy it appears that the app is mining your data and sending it off to "candidates, organizations, groups or causes that we believe have similar political viewpoints, principles or objectives."
The election's over. But make no mistake, this is not a nonpartisan inauguration application. That's not to say it's not a fine app -- it is. And that's not to say it's evil -- it's not. But it belongs to the Presidential Inaugural Committee 2013, and so does any data it collects from you. If you're cool with that, then cool. It's just something to be aware of.
It may just be a bit of self-absorbed, affirmation-kinda thing, but being an Android user I kinda have the feeling that iphone and crackberry users are more likely to be kool-ade-drinking OBot sheeple, and therefore less likely to fall for this crap.

Or maybe this is sort of a reverse-Pauline Kael "I don't know anyone who voted for him" thing.  I dunno, but, like I said, it does not surprise me a bit...

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