Location Industry Hits Speed Bump

        
Location Industry Hits Speed Bump

http://www.gpsworld.com/wireless/location-industry-hits-speed-bump-11651?utm_source=GPS&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Wireless-Pulse_05_18_2011&utm_content=location-industry-hits-speed-bump-11651

by Janice Partyka

Location privacy issues have the power to put the skids on our industry.
When I stepped into the Where 2.0 show, little did I know I was about to
see Apple publicly open its kimono, reveal its location collection
practices, and further fuel public and government outrage on location
privacy. Apple doesn't stand alone as Google also stores similar data on
Android devices. And in a smaller breach, TomTom's user location data
was sold to the Netherland's government, helping to optimize the
placement of speed traps. Congress responded by hauling Apple and Google
into a Congressional subcommittee meeting.

See:
http://www.gpsworld.com/wireless/location-industry-hits-speed-bump-11651?utm_source=GPS&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Wireless-Pulse_05_18_2011&utm_content=location-industry-hits-speed-bump-11651

http://judiciary.senate.gov/pdf/11-5-10%20Tribble%20Testimony.pdf

Guy L. "Bud" Tribble
Vice President of Software Technology
Apple Inc.
Cupertino, CA

"The crowd-sourced database contains the following information: Cell
Tower Information . . . Wi-Fi Access Point Information . . . An Apple
mobile device running Apple=92s mobile device operating system, iOS, can
use the crowdsourced database to . . . find GPS satellites much more
quickly, significantly reducing the wait time for the GPS
location . . . "

Hearing announcement:

http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=3D5157

PDFs of prepared statements:

http://franken.senate.gov/?p=3Dhot_topic&id=3D1496

"A Justice Department report based on 2006 data shows that each year,
over 26,000 adults are stalked through the use of GPS devices,
including GPS devices on mobile phones. That's from 2006-when there
were a third as many smartphones as there are today."

In lieu of a full transcript, some live blogs of the hearing:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2011/05/live-bl=
og-senate-judiciary-committee-hearing-on-mobile-privacy-/1

http://live.thisismynext.com/Event/Senates_Mobile_Privacy_Committee_Hearing=
?Page=3D0


The Apple witness has a tough name in an industry with a higher than
normal percentage of Trekkies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trouble_With_Tribbles

A 3 hour video of the hearing:

http://www.senate.gov/fplayers/CommPlayer/commFlashPlayer.cfm?fn=3Djudiciar=
y051011&st=3Dxxx

Or some excerpts: