Not until some interested computer scientist, journalist, or hacker discovers the distasteful truth is there any kind of outcry. As a whole, we do not educate ourselves, nor even concern ourselves with the information we’re giving away. Second, and perhaps more importantly, users are blissfully ignorant about the privacy they’re giving up every time they click the “accept” button on a new app or program. Most are taking the road of forcing savvy users to opt-out of this data collection, rather than allowing them to opt-in as program features require the information. The problems I see exemplified by this most recent outrage over the Pokémon Go app - and others like it - are twofold:įirst, companies are in a land-grab to collect as much data as possible about their customers against current and potential future use scenarios when it will become valuable. Users can opt-out of many of these Orwellian surveillance schemes, but the question is how many people will go to the trouble of doing so? The company clarified soon after that users would have to opt-in to these features, but the damage was done.īy default, Windows 10 also came with a Big Brother-esque so-called “privacy” policy that granted Microsoft the right to read your emails, “other private communications or files in private folders,” use your bandwidth for their own purposes, and profile your computer usage. Last year, music service Spotify got into trouble with an overreaching data policy that wanted to access users’ photos, contact lists, and media files. Already, stories are circulating of criminals targeting Pokémon players for robberies, and a man who claims he was dumped after his girlfriend discovered he was cheating by looking at his game history - and these are just people exploiting the nature of the game, not hacking anyone’s data. It uses a Google map and your real-world GPS location to direct you to Pokémon you can catch.

Pokémon Go, for example uses your phone’s location, your IP address, and the webpage you most recently visited before playing, all connected with your real name and account information, according to the game’s privacy policy.

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