It sounds like a B-grade movie plot: Millions of smartphone owners are being tracked by their phones. Their mobile apps are eavesdropping on them, too. And information about their whereabouts is being sold to third parties.
But it isn't science fiction. If you own a smartphone and download popular apps, the odds are good that your smartphone knows more about your day-to-day travels than your spouse does. Apple, Google, and Microsoft are in the hot seat now, having to explain how iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone 7 handsets really work, and what they know about where you go and what you do. Predictably, the lawsuits are flying.
Two Michigan women are suing Google over the location-tracking technology included in the company's Android mobile operating system. In a Florida court, two men are suing Apple and demanding that the company either stop collecting tracking information or better safeguard the data it does collect. Both Google and Apple also face an inquiry by a U.S. Senate committee on May 10 intended to discover to what extent they snoop on their customers via smartphones.
With so much alleged spying going on, it's hard to focus on the most important question: Should you care?
Here's a breakdown of what smartphone manufacturers, Microsoft, and some app developers are doing with your phone's location data.
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