There have been some raised eyebrows this week with the news that the Palm Pre can send a regular report back to its manufacturer, telling the company where it is and what applications have been installed. It also reports on program crashes and other usage information.
Although Palm has always said its device will gather data under certain circumstances, the amount of information involved has concerned some critics. The information reporting was first noticed by software developer Joey Hess and has been confirmed by Palm, which says it offers ways to turn data collecting services on and off. We expect similar stories about Apple’s iPhone and assorted other smartphones in the next few days… [Sources: BBC News; Joey Hess blog; PCWorld.com]