Many apps beam usage information—some of it enough to personally identify your phone—to marketers, behind your back. Programmers at Penn State cooked up TaintDroid (ew) to reveal the offenders and help you protect yourself from prying data miners.
Of thirty popular apps tested, a whopping half of them were phoning home to advertisers. Of course, many apps send out your data with your consent—many of them even need this function to do anything at all. But TaintDroid’s aim is to unveil the apps that aren’t upfront about their data sharing, so that you aren’t putting money into a marketing department’s pockets. Now, devs, just think of a new name for your noble app. [TaintDroid via FastCompany]
