Wow… I can remember rather vividly trying to get out of trouble for doing something as a kid with the rather flimsy excuse of “but everyone is doing it”. To make a long story short here, that did not work and I had to face my consequences over my misdeed. So if that excuse does not work with my parents (and believe me it does not work with a traffic cop either). How is it that corporations can get away with it?What we are talking about is a lawsuit against Apple claiming that they monitor, track and record user movements and activities with apps inside iOS. There are several law suits in the courts about this and many have been combined into one big one that Apple now has to face. This sounds great on the surface, until you hear about some of the claims that were thrown out.
Judge Lucy Koh has thrown out claims that tracking user movement without consent (or warrant) is linked to computer fraud and is in violation of federal wiretap laws (it actually is…). Koh also threw out claims that Apple violated customer privacy rights. Her reasoning was that the violations were not an “egregious breach of social norms” and that they were “routine commercial behavior”…. Um unless I am missing something here that is exactly the same as trying to say “but everyone is doing it”.
Sorry on this one it is wrong. It does not matter that every corporation is doing it; it still violates individual privacy rights and is against the law. This goes for ANY corporate entity that is engaging in this type of behavior. If this sticks it could set legal precedent and wipe even more consumer rights from the board. This is no longer about Apple and what they may or may not be doing; it is about basic rights that consumers have to protect themselves from this type of intrusion.
As the technology to track and collect information about users of electronic devices and online services grow (simply because there are no laws that specifically prohibit it) we are looking at a real danger of the people that are supposed to interpret the law not knowing when it is being broken. Maybe what we need is not another CIPA or SOPA, but laws that prevent a company from strong-arming away the rights of consumers with “user agreements”. Sadly that is not likely to happen any time soon. We find it very sad that as technology creates new products to enhance our lives and connect people in more ways we have to give up our right to individual privacy simply to use them.
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