If you read the details on the WSJ site, it doesn't sound nearly as nefarious as the author of this article seems to think. For example, Angry Birds (<a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/wtk-mobile/2010/12/17/angry-birds/" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.wsj.com/wtk-mobile/2010/12/17/angry-birds/</a>):<p>“User allowed the app to transmit a username/password for the Crystal game network to Crystal; allowed app to see location; and allowed app to search contacts for friends.”<p>It doesn’t sound as though any of this is happening without the explicit permission of the user.
I installed the firewall app from the Cydia store on my jailbroken iPhone. It is pretty impressive just how many apps want to contact various parties to report would-be irrelevant info on your phone. Assault on privacy indeed.<p>I did notice that Angry Birds, and offline game, sure wanted to send a lot of data out for no apparent reason.<p>It seems like there is a new business model reflected by a subset of the app store catalog that just intends to serve as a cheap/free distraction for the user, with the real goal of raiding as much data as possible.