Updated: 12/12/2012
This is a followup to a previous post I made a few months ago, talking about the need to check out the permissions of each app you download, and why it is so important. In the previous post I gave a link to an article about the significant increase in Android malware. The recent increase in the number of anti-virus programs available today for Android users would seem to confirm the information found in that article.
When I first got my Android phone, I downloaded every free app in the world, never bothering to check out these things called "permissions" that each app wanted. Today I am much more careful after having both my computer and my Android phone hacked into.
U.S. Releases Identity Theft Statistics
The US Federal Trade Commission received 250,854 complaints about identity theft during 2010 - nearly one-fifth of the entire number of complaints received by the agency. For the eleventh year in succession, it was the subject most consumers complained about.
Everything can be a learning experience, and I learned some valuable things since having to change all my passwords. For one thing, I found out how many sites are linked with Facebook, YouTube, Google and Yahoo. I have unlinked everything since. I ordered all new credit card numbers as a precaution and I was depressed to find out how many new small print privacy statements every bank and credit card company sent me to read. Basically everyone wants to share my information with everyone else and I'm getting pretty tired of having my information shared without my knowledge. I'm personally choosing to "opt-out" whenever I can. But there are other much simpler steps you can take.
Don't choose to auto-update your apps. Many apps add new permissions with their updates, and wouldn't you like to know if the update of the game you play a lot suddenly wants to know all your contacts on your phone? Or worse still, wanted the permission to dial numbers from your phone?
Before you download that next new app, check out those permissions! Does that app really need to access the Internet? If they say their app only collects anonymous statistics, can you trust them? Are you willing to give out all your contact numbers to someone you don't know just to get a fancy looking graph?
I was surprised to find out some of the permissions the latest Facebook app for Android wanted, and I have decided not to use it on my phone as a result. Now I just check Facebook from my home computer where I can control it a bit more.
UPDATE - 2/25/2012:
Malware Slides Past The Bouncer, Uses Facebook As The Side Door
Some battery apps want lots of permissions. At the very least, most of the free battery apps all seem to want to access the Internet, show you ads, or know who you are. You have a choice. You can decide to support those apps that respect your privacy rights. If you are concerned at all about identity theft, before you download another app, do yourself a favor, and just take a minute or two to check out those permissions.
Battery Notifier BT Free and Battery Notifier Pro BT require these two permissions:
Hardware controls
control vibrator
System tools
automatically start at boot
That's it. No annoying ads. We don't read your contacts. We don't read your bookmarks. We don't read any other accounts you have on your device. We don't access any other information and we don't share your information, anonymous or otherwise, with anyone. We don't need access to the Internet. We don't need to know who you are, or where you live, and we don't care.
After comparing us to the competition, we hope you will then decide to download either our free app Battery Notifier BT Free, or purchase Battery Notifier Pro BT.
Because we really do care about your privacy.
UPDATE 3/31/14 :
Both of our apps now require three permissions.
To find out why, see: New permission added
