Slashdot Mirror
Sprint Orders All OEMs To Strip Carrier IQ From Their Phones
An anonymous reader writes with 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.
I am currently on the fence trying to decide between Sprint and Verizon. I think Sprint just tipped me to their side with this.
Wonder if they're giving up Carrier IQ as a sacrificial lamb, while their other gathering program(s) lie safely tucked away. Old Gestapo trick. Shoot one of your own...
Does this mean that 1.3million Sprint users are on some DHS watchlist?
Why wouldn't they collect "diagnostics" on all 26 million? If I were a data analyst looking for useful data to "improve user experience" (or whatever it is they say they use it for) then I want the largest data set possible.
I'd hate to work for and / or have a stake in Carrier IQ. Talk about going down in a massive ball of flames overnight! Simply put, that company, at least by name, will have to cease to exist. No one would dare want that name associated with their devices.
Better known as 318230.
I wonder if this will result in a price hike since they will be losing all this juicy customer data that they may have been selling to "market research" vultures.
It's nice to have a Blackberry through all of this. The WP7 users are probably pretty happy too.
That was my first thought when I read the headline: what have the replaced it with?
They're apparently doing this in order to avoid being dragged in front on Congress and not out of any sort of altruism. (OK, so no one thought they were doing it out of altruism, but you may have thought they were trying to avoid alienating customers. Nope. They just want Congress to drop the issue.)
The article itself makes it pretty clear that they expect that Sprint is simply going to switch to some other software. It's kind of like how the iPhone "doesn't run CarrierIQ as of iOS 5." Well, of course it doesn't - Apple moved all of that stuff into iOS 5 itself. It's built-in to the OS now. All that CarrierIQ information is still gathered, and still sent back to Apple.
But that's OK. Remember when people were upset about the iPhone tracking you? That's a "feature" in iOS 5. Essentially, by allowing you to "track" yourself and your friends, Apple managed to turn "we constantly track and record your location" into a bullet point feature. (Not joking! Yes, you have to "opt in" to be allowed to see the data that Apple gathers about you. That's nice. They still gather it if you have the features turned off, you just aren't allowed to use that data yourself.)
So I fully expect that a couple of weeks after the "remove CarrierIQ update" is released, security researchers will discover Sprint phones now come with some new software with a different name that does the exact same thing.
I think they just got caught with their hand in the cookie jar and wisely decided to let go of the cookie. I'm guessing that their corporate lawyer types who are dealing with the lawsuits recommended this happen ASAP and management is following their lawyers'' advice. The question now is will all the crumbs laying around lead to them being punished or just sent to bed without dinner.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You get what you pay for.
Sprint - 2847GB/mo (limited by 4G connection speed/availability)
Verizon - 5GB/mo + overage charges
I'll take service over "customer care" any day.
What about those of us who already have it on our existing phones? Any way to remove it, Sprint?
While Sprint has been the largest user of CarrierIQ, with the most invasive CIQ installations in devices, AT&T was starting to put it on their phones too. For example, the Samsung Infuse 4G Gingerbread leaks from September to November carried a CIQ installation that was quite invasive. All evidence of CIQ is gone from the latest UCKL2 leak.
Similarly, while the original UCKH7 build for the Galaxy S II did not have CIQ, all leaks from October and November had it start to appear - but it was removed before the official UCKK6 update that just started getting rolled out to users earlier this week.
Carrier IQ (the company) = smoking crater. Their largest user is dropping them like a hot potato, and their fastest growth market (AT&T devices) is also ditching them.
Canadians are still screwed - Rogers seems silent in terms of CIQ. They actually had the balls to claim they don't use it, even though it was clearly there in the UXKG3 firmware release for the Samsung Infuse in that country.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
on shareholderdot.com, investors are furious that sprint has foregone such a significiant exploitation of revenue stream. after all, why else does sprint exist, if not to provide them with profit?
Uh, unless something's changed, Verizon never had CarrierIQ to begin with.
Unless something's changed, VZW has denied using CarrierIQ, but has refused to explain why CarrierIQ was found to be connecting to servers with "vzw" in their names.
As a VZW customer, I'd be shocked if VZW wasn't doing something nefarious when it comes to customer monitoring. I'd also fully expect them to then lie about it.
Note well: This doesn't mean I'd trust Sprint (or AT&T or T-Mobile or whoever) over VZW. I wouldn't trust any of them.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I doubt the few people who complain don't nearly equate to how much nascar, amazaon, and others are paying Sprint for this.
end users paid the transfers.
apparently it didn't even check how it was connected to the internet, imagine leaking that stuff over starbucks wifi.(not "shit easy" to do to check how you're connected.. but easy to do anyways, even without root).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
You get what you pay for.
Sprint - 2847GB/mo (limited by 4G connection speed/availability)
Verizon - 5GB/mo + overage charges
I'll take service over "customer care" any day.
I used to be a Sprint customer. I'll take the 5GB + overage charges.
And your evidence that they ever used it is where? Oh right, you don't have any.
And even if they didn't use CarrierIQ, what's to say that they don't have a homegrown version of software that does the exact same thing?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance