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ethics Guide

Free aPPS For daTa

You’re sitting in your Introduction to MIS class, and the But what data would Nick pay for? How much of it could
professor starts talking about how profitable software devel- you get? He wouldn’t care about gaming data. But he would
opment can be. He points out that billionaires like Bill Gates pay for data about user behavior like which Web sites they
(Microsoft), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Larry Page (Google), and visit, where they’re located, who their friends are, and what
Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) all made their fortunes by de- they purchase.
veloping useful software. But a vocal classmate jumps in and Flashlight Apps
points out that he’s never paid any of those people a penny. He
uses Google Search, Gmail, and Facebook all for free. Yes, he At lunch, you do a few searches about how mobile applica-
uses Microsoft Office, but it’s the free online version through tions can access data on smartphones. It turns out that users
OneDrive. Even the apps on his smartphone are free. just have to grant the application permission(s), and it can
Then comes the perennial question, which also happens access any data on the phone. Could that be right? Any data?
to be a major point of frustration for the tech industry: How This could be a gold mine. You get excited at the prospect of
do you make money from free apps? The professor says some- harvesting thousands of terabytes of data and selling them to
thing about capturing market share, potential income, and Nick. You could retire in a month.
future innovation. You’re not buying it. You’re interested in But then a sinking feeling comes over you. What if you’re
real income, not potential income. not the first person to think of this idea? What if someone else
is already giving away apps and harvesting users’ data. You de-
cide to check the permissions for one of the most useful free ap-
Nick the Data Broker plications you have on your phone—your flashlight app. You
The person sitting next to you, Nick, starts smiling broadly and search for “flashlight app permissions” and you see dozens of
nods his head. He’s in your group for your big class project. He news articles referencing a threat report by SnoopWall. 34
leans over and whispers, “If you’re not paying for it, you are the The SnoopWall report looked at the permissions required
product. Data is where you make money, not software. Give them by the top 10 flashlight apps for Android smartphones. The
the software, take the data, and make the money. It’s simple.” results were shocking. All of these apps did more than just
You’re a little confused at first. But then you think back turn a light on and off. They required permission to access
to last Wednesday when you first met Nick. He said he was data about your location, network connectivity, and USB stor-
coming back to school to get a degree in MIS because he need- age. They also required permissions to install shortcuts, re-
ed the technical knowledge for his new job with his brother’s ceive data to/from the Internet, modify your system settings,
company. He explained that his brother was a data broker and disable your screen lock.
(sometimes called an information broker). He buys data The app you use was third on the list. Not good. You de-
about individuals from companies and then sells it to other cide to check to see whether the report was accurate. Were
companies for a profit. It sounded like they were doing really these apps harvesting all this data? You look at the first five
well. Before you could even ask if it was legal or ethical, Nick flashlight apps that show up in Google Play. The results are
quipped, “Yes, of course it’s legal. Everyone does it.” He had shown in the table below. The bottom two rows show the
obviously gotten this question before. changes in the number of permissions from 2013 to 2014.
But was Nick right? He isn’t a billionaire like Bill Gates. Seeing all of the permissions required by these simple
Nick was only concerned with buying and selling data. He flashlight apps is distressing. Why would your flashlight need
wasn’t interested in application development. But he did your GPS coordinates? Who was getting this data? What were
make a good point, and it got you thinking. What if you they using it for? It looks like someone had already thought of
started a business that made applications that were designed your data-harvesting idea. It may be too late to make any mon-
to collect individual data? You could make dozens of useful ey off the free-app-for-individual-data scheme. All of a sudden,
apps, collect individual data, and then sell it to Nick. these free apps don’t look as attractive to you—as a consumer.
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