Sprint orders its handset makers to strip Carrier IQ from their phones!

[thewayne]

"...a report that Sprint, in an attempt to extricate itself from the Carrier IQ drama, has "ordered that all of their hardware partners remove the Carrier IQ software from Sprint devices as soon as possible." Sprint confirmed that they've disabled the use of Carrier IQ on their end, saying, "diagnostic information and data is no longer being collected." The software is currently installed on roughly 26 million Sprint phones, though the company has only been collecting data from 1.3 million of them."

Good. I find the numbers in the last sentence to be curious, I'd like to know if the software on the other 24.7 million phones had not been activated, or had it been turned on in the 1.3 for tech monitoring and never turned off? Could 1.3 million phones being actively monitored be normal for a cell carrier? That's what, half a million phones per state having active technical problems?

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/12/16/2039237/sprint-orders-all-oems-to-strip-carrier-iq-from-their-phones


In other Carrier IQ news, some carriers claim that "we" consent to Carrier IQ-like monitoring with the impenetrably-dense EULA that we have to agree to or the contracts that we sign. Verizon did not deploy Carrier IQ, and though it was installed in iPhones it apparently was never activated.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/telcos-say-you-consented/

Comments

[silveradept]

Well, that's interesting. Makes me wonder whether they're doing it only because of the outcry instead of because they realize it's not a good idea to install monitoring software without consent.