And you thought Google’s got the goods on you. certain, the Web search leader keeps tabs on the searches that emanate from your PC. But consider the documents dossier that could be drawn up on users of Apple’s iPhone. Subscribers use the music-playing mobile phone not just for storing music, photos, and contact lists, but plus for e-mail, Web surfing, and software downloads from Apple’s iTunes.

Concern by how Apple and software developers that work with it might use some of that intel surfaced in recent days with reports that the company built in a “kill switch” that lets it disable applications it considers malicious, even after they’ve been downloaded onto a subscriber’s phone. “The notion that Apple can choose what functionality my applications should have frightens me,” Jon Zdziarski, who discovered the existence of the kill switch, recently wrote on his blog. “How about legislation that requires a mandatory kill switch be integrated into every human being, so that the police can kill an individual without

even needing to dispatch an officer to a scene?”

But for all the unease by the kill switch, concerns by how Apple may use iPhone subscriber details may be misplaced, industry experts say. Apple isn’t alone in monitoring the applications used on its phones. Carriers keep close tabs on what’s being downloaded onto users’ handsets. Mobile software retailer Handango regularly removes offending games and utility applications from its site whether they seem to infringe on another company’s copyright. “We have to do that all the day,” says Handango CEO Bill Stone.

Overriding Privacy Laws?

Companies across the industry already gather oodles of user notes. Handango, for instance, knows which phone model its customers use and which applications they buy, so it can recommend additional products. Microsoft and Nokia gather info on society who sign up for their…

Original post by Mike

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