Documents filed in response to a U.S. lawmaker's request show that Sprint is by far the biggest user of Carrier IQ's software, with more than 26 million handsets featuring thecontroversial mobile tracking tool.
AT&T, another major wireless carrier , said it has integrated the software into about 900,000 handsets, although it is collecting data only from about 575,000 of them.
The letter was prompted by security researcher Trevor Eckhart's disclosure last month that Carrier IQ software could be used to conduct surreptitious and highly intrusive tracking of mobile phone users.
Franken had asked the carriers for such details as how many devices had the software installed, how long they had been using the software, what they were using it for and what data was being collected with it.
Dale Sohn, president and CEO of STA, said his company had pre-installed Carrier IQ's software on 25 million of its devices. But the software was installed at the request of its wireless carrier customers and Samsung itself had nothing to do with any data that might have been collected with the software, Sohn said.
HTC CEO Peter Chou said his company began installing Carrier IQ's software into its handsets in 2009 at Sprint's request. So far, HTC has pre-installed the software in about 6.3 million devices, he said. Chou also said his company has no knowledge and nothing to do with the data collection practices of its customers.
No comments:
Post a Comment