Has your iPhone been snooping on you?

Stephen Withers
Friday, 20 February 2009 03:52

IT Industry - Market

How often you run an iPhone application should be between you and your iPhone, shouldn't it? There's a fair chance at least some of your apps have been quietly 'phoning home.'

When it comes to desktop applications, many users are - with good reason - wary of programs that phone home to alert the vendor that they are being used.

Tools such as application firewalls can block these communications, though you need a relatively sophisticated product if the app needs Internet access to do its job.

It turns out that a company called Pinch Media has been offering an analytics library to iPhone developers that's capable of monitoring application usage including the number of sessions and session duration.

Pinch Media's  code has found its way into "a few hundred applications" so far.

That's not a large slice of the 20,000-odd iPhone apps, but the list includes several number one pair and free applications. Furthermore, it "has been in at least ten of the top 100 free applications for a while now," according to Pinch Media CEO Greg Yardley.

So there's a good chance that at least one of your iPhone apps is being a tattletale.

What has Pinch Media learned about your iPhone usage? Find out on page 2.