Senator Al Franken gets answers regarding CarrierIQ, still not satisfied
It's been two weeks since the CarrierIQ story caught the eye of Senator Al Franken, who swiftly put his fist down and began demanding answers from the companies that admitted to allowing the tracking software on their handsets, as well as CarrierIQ itself. The deadline for the companies to respond is over for all but two -- T-Mobile and Motorola were both given until December 20th -- and the good Senator's had the chance to look over their questionnaires. Here's what Sen. Franken had to say about what he read:
I appreciate the responses I received, but I'm still very troubled by what's going on... People have a fundamental right to control their private information. After reading the companies' responses, I'm still concerned that this right is not being respected. The average user of any device equipped with Carrier IQ software has no way of knowing that this software is running, what information it is getting, and who it is giving it to -- and that's a problem. It appears that Carrier IQ has been receiving the contents of a number of text messages -- even though they had told the public that they did not. I'm also bothered by the software's ability to capture the contents of our online searches-even when users wish to encrypt them. So there are still many questions to be answered here and things that need to be fixed.
Kind of makes you wonder exactly how each company answered the Senator's questions, right? Wonder no longer, our curious friends -- the responses in their fullness can be found on Senator Franken's website, linked below. In addition, tune in tomorrow when we'll dive into the responses in-depth. There's one question that we still want answered, though: what will each company do about the matter, now that it's caught public scrutiny? Our bet is on "not much."
