iPhone & Android Apps Are Sending Your Personal Information To Third Parties

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Take, for instance, Pandora, arguably the best-loved music streaming app in the US. According to WSJ, it sends information to eight trackers, location data to seven of these, while two receive demographic data and a unique phone ID is sent to three of them. And don’t worry, there’s plenty more where that came from.

Apparently, out of a survey of 101 apps and games, 56 transmitted a phone ID to other companies. 47 gave up location data, while a smaller number sent info like age, gender, etc. Like you might have guessed, this all goes on without so much as a an Angry Bird winking conspiratorially.  What does Apple have to say about this? “We have created strong privacy protections for our customers, especially regarding location-based data,” says Tom Neumayr, Apple spokesman. “Privacy and trust are vitally important.” So, nothing then. Apple won’t even tell if it has rules against this sort of thing.