“Cheap Phones Grab User Data,” The Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2018 B1. Cell phones sold in developing countries with limited privacy protections loaded with programs that harvest data.
While the phone give free access to the Internet, they are loaded with apps that track the user’s location, run targeted ads, and send usage data to the phone manufacturers. But the users aren’t given a choice, beyond whether they want a phone or not.
Is this similar to the Faustian bargain already made in developing countries, trading our privacy for access to Facebook or Google or Amazon? At least we were given the choice. Sort of. And we have privacy laws. Sort of.
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