Global Positioning System Reference
In-Depth Information
that court documents redact the name of the plaintiff. Since 2000 the fbi's use
of such letters has doubled, to more than sixteen thousand annually. 113
Customers also grant data-sharing rights to the makers of location-based
apps they install on their phones. A Wall Street Journal investigation found that
47 of the 101 most popular smartphone apps sent location data to third par-
ties. 114 Dutch gps giant TomTom, searching for revenues to offset slumping
device sales, marketed driver behavior data to European governments on the
understanding they would use it for transportation planning. The company
suffered a public relations black eye when the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dag-
blad revealed that Netherlands officials shared the data with traffic police, who
used it to set speed traps. 115
Phone hacking is another threat. The rising use of smartphones for personal
shopping and banking and their adoption for business and professional use
has mobile cybercrime on the rise. Privacy advocates have criticized a type of
software called Carrier iq, sold to mobile carriers to monitor their networks,
as spyware because it is capable of logging the user's keystrokes. 116 Whether
hackers can access and commandeer the software for other purposes is
unknown. Documents and e-mails downloaded from the cloud pose risks of
malicious software aimed at everything from identity theft to corporate espi-
onage. Lawyers representing a California software company in a $2.2 billion
lawsuit against the Chinese government and several computer manufacturers
received nearly a dozen Trojan e-mails (traced to servers in China) that were
designed to steal confidential documents from the firm's computer system. 117
Business users clearly think the benefits of mobile devices and apps outweigh
the risks. An at&t poll in early 2012 found that 96 percent of small businesses
used wireless technologies and nearly two-thirds doubted their company's abil-
ity to survive without them. 118 Almost a third of small businesses used mobile
apps to save time, increase productivity, and reduce costs. Of those who did,
four- fifths used gps navigation and mapping apps and nearly half used location-
based services. ie Market Research of Vancouver, British Columbia, forecasts
gps navigation and lbs services to reach $15.2 billion by 2016. 119 tns Global, a
London-based market intelligence consultancy, surveyed forty-eight thousand
people in ifty-eight countries and found that 62 percent of mobile phone users
who do not already use lbs aspire to. 120 One in five surveyed was interested in
seeing mobile advertising if it offered him or her a nearby deal. 121
Free advertiser- supported lbs apps are likely to be among the first ones any
new smartphone owner downloads. Just about any service or subject of inter-
 
 
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