The revelation that U.S. spies are able to monitor communications over Google, Facebook and other American web firms’ platforms will have a big impact overseas, and nowhere more so than in Europe.
Unlike competitor Sprint, T-Mobile has taken a more restrained approach to its use of Carrier IQ’s handset monitoring software. T-Mobile acknowledged installing the software in 450,000 Android and BlackBerry phones, but it claimed to use a limited version and collects data only for troubleshooting purposes.
In documents released late Monday, Carrier IQ revealed its phone monitoring software isn’t just sending same generic performance and network metrics from every device. Operators could use Carrier IQ’s platform to perform research on their unwitting customers, recruiting their phones into virtual focus groups.
Carrier IQ has become the target of public outrage, but a new study finds that the condemnation of Carrier IQ might be misplaced. The Yankee Group discovered a majority of consumers want their operators to access the very information that Carrier IQ is tracking.
What exactly is Carrier IQ doing with your smartphone data? It claims that only its selling network performance metrics to operators. But relationships it has with media analytics firms and handset makers imply otherwise. With 150 million smartphones tracked Carrier IQ has big data goldmine.
