MacRumors posts a purported Steve Jobs email from a reader who questions Apple’s location data stance.
Q: Steve,
Could you please explain the necessity of the passive location-tracking tool embedded in my iPhone? It’s kind of unnerving knowing that my exact location is being recorded at all times. Maybe you could shed some light on this for me before I switch to a Droid. They don’t track me.
A: Oh yes they do. We don’t track anyone. The info circulating around is false. Sent from my iPhone
If this is a Jobs email, the details are vague (per usual). He seems to imply that the data that is stored in the phone isn’t used to “Track” iOS users. Apple’s public stance on the data is that it is used to build its IP location DB.
Jobs’ email isn’t likely to stem the controversy. There are already government inquiries in the US and abroad.
Android, it has been discovered, doesn’t keep as long of a record of users’ locations but perhaps, as Jobs implies, Google does more tracking with that data. Data mining for Advertising purposes comes to mind.
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