What Are Your Apps Sharing?

[jntdroid]

Is there an app out there that allows you to restrict other installed apps from having internet access anytime they want?

Microsoft attempted to do this starting with Windows Vista. It's called "User Account Control Settings". It sucked! People realized that they constantly had to give permissions to everything. Apple had a great time making fun of this in their ads.

Pandora has come out and explained why it needs permissions to contacts and calendar: "Your Personal Information: these permissions enable two features-- both of which are always entirely under your control-- to share your Pandora stations with a friend via email, and to add an event featured in an ad (like a movie premier) to your calendar." I'm not saying I believe them, but for those wanting a reason, they have given one.

I posted the Wall Street Journal article in it's entirety a couple of days ago in the general discussion area. Then the mods moved it to the "apps" area, where barely anyone visits. Although I agree it has to do with apps, but I thought it was important enough to be discussed and shared in a more popular general forum. There are more comments there too:

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-applications/107132-your-apps-watching-you.html

Sorry I missed that - maybe a mod will merge the two if they see fit!

 

[GrillMouster]

What gets me, is if you go to the market to download the widget or whatever you call if for this site, it tells you it has permission for:
Net Communication
Phone Call - Read State ID
My Location (A course location, but still my location)
Storage - which says mofidy or delete SD card storage
and System

Why, does any site need this information? Once I read that, I backed out, don't need it.

The wording of the permissions can sometimes appear to be more ominous than it really is. It would be nice if there was a spot immediately following the permissions description for the developer to explain in plain language why the app needs those permissions and what they will and won't do with that access.

As for the specific permissions referenced in the quoted post, here's my take:
Net Communication: Well, obviously the app needs access to the internet if you're to view content from this site.

Phone Call - Read State ID: I've assumed that this just means the app can tell whether you're actively on a phone call so it can pause and resume when the call if over.

My Location (A course location, but still my location): I wish I knew how just how corse the location is. Is it just city/state or is it a few city blocks? I think this is often used or ads so they can target specific geographic populations. Alternately it could be gathering data for marketing research.

Storage - which says mofidy or delete SD card storage
and System: Some apps save internal storage by storing some apps & downloads to the SD card. If you use a file explorer to view your SD card you'll see several directories created by different apps. App preferences, backups, etc. are sometimes stored there.

 

[Incredibilly]

Good points, Grill...
Still, for the same reason many of us root our phones (true ownership of the device), I want final say on what mine transmits into the cloud. Of course I can always NOT use an offending app...*sigh*

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