Google Denies Any Ties with Carrier IQ

Tweet

After catching a little break from the daily news cycle, Carrier IQ is back in the headlines as Google has publicly declared, via Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, that it does not work with the company and does not support it.

According to Reuters, Schmidt categorically denied any ties between Google and Carrier IQ:

“Android is an open platform, so it’s possible for people to build software that’s actually not very good for you, and this appears to be one.”

“It’s a key-logger, and it actually does keep your keystrokes, and we certainly don’t work with them and we certainly don’t support it,” he told an Internet freedom conference in the Dutch city of The Hague.

The key-logging capabilities of the software have been discovered to work on Android handsets (specifically HTC-made devices) and further demoed on video to show that Carrier IQ and its partners – carriers and manufacturers – have the theoretical ability to monitor and register everything a user does on a smartphone. That doesn’t mean either Carrier IQ or its partners actually engage in such practices, but the software has such powers, which could be taken advantage of by third parties. The main purpose of the Carrier IQ software is to offer feedback and crash reports on the way smartphones perform in order for device makers and mobile operators to improve the hardware, on one hand, and the wireless network services, on the other hand.

The U.S. Senate, as well as various EU regulatory commissions are already looking into the way Carrier IQ software works. And while the company tried to deny reports detailing the key-logging features of its mobile apps and to point the finger at manufacturers and carriers, Carrier IQ has been already hit with at least three class action suits alongside some of the companies that have been found to use, or have used, the software to monitor the performance of certain mobile devices including HTC, Samsung, Apple, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint.