Steve Jobs admitted that Apple made mistakes in how it handled location data on the iPad and iPhone, but claims the data was not used to keep tabs on the whereabouts of customer. In the meantime Google announced that it used Android phone location data anonymously and with user consent to provide services to its users and did not announce any changes. On the other hand, Apple will shortly provide a software update to limit the location cache to no more that 7 days.
Marc Rotenberg (executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center) was pleased that “Apple acknowledged a mistake and they fixed it.”
It’s unlikely this is the end of the controversy as surely some bad event will force governments do re-think location data privacy issues.
Do you like the notion that Apple and/or Google are tracking your location?