Comments on: Free is Not Always Free – Is Your Privacy for Sale? http://fearlessweb.trendmicro.com/2012/misc/free-is-not-always-free-is-your-privacy-for-sale/ Just another WordPress site Fri, 10 May 2013 22:10:06 +0200 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: doug http://fearlessweb.trendmicro.com/2012/misc/free-is-not-always-free-is-your-privacy-for-sale/#comment-3319 doug Fri, 06 Apr 2012 03:30:37 +0000 http://fearlessweb.trendmicro.com/?p=2254#comment-3319 When I purchase an application I provide the supplier with personal & account information. Which is worse, giving away info needed to purchase with no assurance that usage information will not be collected or getting the free application & giving away usage information for certain?

]]> By: Greg Boyle http://fearlessweb.trendmicro.com/2012/misc/free-is-not-always-free-is-your-privacy-for-sale/#comment-3283 Greg Boyle Tue, 03 Apr 2012 23:33:50 +0000 http://fearlessweb.trendmicro.com/?p=2254#comment-3283 Hi Gregg,
Too true.
There are no guarentees that a paid app is collecting any less information than a free app. However you can be pretty certain that it is not an advertising network but rather the developer themselves that is collecting the information.
This raises a much bigger debate, and probably one I will look at in a future blog…what level of government intervention or regulation should there be with regards to data collection via app’s? and with so many small developers from all parts of the globe how could this possibly be enforced?

Rest assured we are always looking at ways that we can effectively protect our users personal information.

Thanks for the suggestions and thanks for taking the time to post.

]]> By: Gregg Jackson http://fearlessweb.trendmicro.com/2012/misc/free-is-not-always-free-is-your-privacy-for-sale/#comment-3270 Gregg Jackson Tue, 03 Apr 2012 03:27:55 +0000 http://fearlessweb.trendmicro.com/?p=2254#comment-3270 I think you have missed a much larger problem. I rarely download anything that is free, but paying upfront for an app is no assurance that it is not harvesting information from the user. Indeed, reading a Privacy Statement provides no assurance that the user knows what is being harvested–in part because the statements are so long and convoluted that most of us do not fully understand them. Trend Micro probably could modify its security products to detect and temporarily block all uploads not specifically initiated by the browser user, but so many applications require such uploads for their functionality that users would soon be bogged down approving the ones that are necessary. What’s the solution? I don’t know but I pay your company every year to protect me, and to date, with some caution on my part, it has spared me big problems. Thanks.

]]> By: CPM Advertising http://fearlessweb.trendmicro.com/2012/misc/free-is-not-always-free-is-your-privacy-for-sale/#comment-3087 CPM Advertising Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:53:17 +0000 http://fearlessweb.trendmicro.com/?p=2254#comment-3087 It’s going to be end of mine day, except before finish I am reading this fantastic post to improve my knowledge.

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