1. PR Log - Global Press Release Distribution
Apple and Google Use Phone Data to Map the World by www.batteryfast.com
By battery
Dated: Apr 26, 2011
You may not know it, but if you carry a smartphone in your pocket, you are probably doing unpaid work for
Apple or Google — and helping them eventually aim more advertising directly at you.
You may not know it, but if you carry a smartphone in your pocket, you are probably doing unpaid work
for Apple or Google — and helping them eventually aim more advertising directly at you.
As those two companies battle for dominance in mobile computing, they have increasingly been using their
customers’ phones as sensors to collect data about nearby cell towers and Wi-Fi hot spots.
Google and Apple use this data to improve the accuracy of everything on the phone that uses location. That
includes maps and navigation services, but also advertising aimed at people in a particular spot — a
potentially huge business that is just getting off the ground. In fact, the information has become so valuable
that the companies have been willing to push the envelope on privacy to collect it.
“Google envisions a world where even a small business can promote products to consumers nearby on a
mobile device,” said Alistair Goodman, chief executive of Placecast, a location-based advertising company
here. “That is a massive market.”
The companies are using the cell tower and hot spot data to build maps of the world, maps that help
smartphones quickly pinpoint their locations. Using the signals as navigational beacons is particularly
useful in places where GPS satellite signals are weak, like urban areas or anywhere indoors.
Shifting allegiances and legal battles in the world of location services suggest competition in this market is
heating up.
Apple initially relied on technology from Skyhook Wireless, a company that was a pioneer in the technique
of using Wi-Fi hot spots for location. But last year it began collecting its own data as well. And late last
year, Skyhook sued Google, charging that Google had copied its technology and persuaded Motorola to
break contracts with Skyhook and use Google’s competing service.
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Google and Apple have said that they collect the information anonymously and use it to keep their
databases of Wi-Fi hot spots up to date, not to track individuals. But because a person’s location is delicate
information, the practices have raised privacy fears.
The use of this data by the companies has been under scrutiny since last week, when two technology
researchers reported that a file stored on many iPhones and iPads keeps track of all the locations visited by
a user. The file is unencrypted and is copied to people’s personal computers when they sync their devices.
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2. PR Log - Global Press Release Distribution
The report prompted lawmakers in the United States to ask Apple for explanations. Several European
governments said they would open investigations into Apple’s practices. On Monday, two customers sued
Apple accusing it of privacy invasion and computer fraud. They contend the company is secretly recording
and storing the location and movement of iPhone and iPad users.
Late last week, Google said it was collecting information about nearby networks from Android users,
though it said that it was not tracking individuals and that it allowed users to decline to participate.
Lisa Madigan, the attorney general of Illinois, wrote to Google and Apple on Monday asking them to
explain their location data collection practices.
Apple has declined to comment on the matter.
On Monday, the Web site MacRumors published an e-mail said to be from Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s
co-founder and chief executive, in which he replied to a person who had said he planned to switch to a
Google Android phone because Google did not track him. The reply said: “Oh yes they do. We don’t track
anyone. The info circulating around is false.”
Apple declined to confirm the authenticity of the e-mail.
Some security specialists said they believed Apple was not tracking people, but rather collecting data to
update its location databases, since Wi-Fi networks can quickly come and go. A letter sent from Apple in
July to two members of Congress, Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Joe L. Barton,
Republican of Texas, appears to confirm this and provides the most detailed explanation of the technology.
In the letter, Apple said it collects the location data anonymously and only when consumers agree to use its
location-based services like maps, or any apps that ask for a user’s location, and for its advertising system,
iAds. The company said it began relying on its own databases for location information in 2010. Explaining
its need to collect data from its customers’ phones, Apple wrote, “These databases must be updated
continuously.”
Security researchers said that they believed that the file with location data stored on iPhones and iPads was
meant as a “cache” that would help the device pinpoint its whereabouts faster, and that it could help feed
Apple’s giant database of network locations. But they said Apple should have been more diligent about
encrypting the file and deleting old data.
“I don’t know why they would want to keep all that data on the device,” said Mark Seiden, an information
security consultant in Silicon Valley.
Skyhook began collecting data about Wi-Fi hot spots by sending a fleet of more than 500 cars to drive
around the streets of every major city in the United States, Europe and many Asian countries.
“We drove the world,” said Ted Morgan, Skyhook’s chief executive. The company updates the database by
sending its cars to remap certain areas and by using phones as sensors when a user requests location data.
Google, which initially collected data on Wi-Fi hot spots with the same fleet of cars that was taking photos
for its StreetView service, said it stopped doing so last year after it was found to have collected e-mails and
other data streamed through those hot spots. It now collects much of that data and traffic information,
through customers’ phones.
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3. PR Log - Global Press Release Distribution
Mobile advertising could be a $2.5 billion market by 2015, according to Frost & Sullivan, and ads tied to a
location are much more lucrative than other ads. But Mr. Morgan said the location data could be valuable in
areas beyond the Internet and mobile phones.
For example, a retailer that has eight outlets in a city could use data about walking patterns to determine
where to open its next outlet.
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