[Atrix 4G General] :
This post is not about me or about "I told you so" but I did my best to warn many Motorola users what measures they should have taken to minimise the chance "the collected data" that Motorola's CEO Mr Sanjay Jha talked about a while ago to be safe-guarded. One method I suggested was to hard reset the phone, in hope, all the collected data to be wiped out too when upgrading to Gingerbread for instance. This was before CIQ became the headlines.

I did a research before submitting this post and found a proof of my claim about Mr Jha making a reference to the collected data that always troubled me.

Source & Date: 7 Jul 2011

“Jha himself stated that Motorola’s Motoblur UI overlay is being used to collect information about customer use of applications and how that use impacts power consumption.”

Have you heard of Smart Actions application in Razr’s phone? The application is one outcome of the collected data from our phones. We users contributed unknowingly and without consent. The most descent thing Motorola could do now to make the Smart Actions application available as a free download to all Motorola phones. The admission is there that MotoBlur itself was a spying overlay. Motorola is/was more than capable of creating own CIQ agent. What else did Motorola collected from us? I have challenged Motorola on their own Forums about my email password accounts being saved on their servers and all I got was an inadequate technical explanation from the forum manager Mark. Yes, providing you are logged on to your MotoBlur account Motorola stores all your email account settings including the passwords. I have stopped using MotoBlur account for the same reason and managed to wipe out my email account details from Motorola’s servers, providing Motorola does not make a backup of the data, and have changed all my passwords now. I hope Julian Assange doesn’t own a Motorola phone. This is extremely serious matter, far more than the CIQ as far as I’m concerned.

Those that cleared themselves on CIQ controversy never said if they used other means to collect the same type of data. All they said was they did not use CIQ. Correct me if I’m wrong on this matter.

As far as I’m concerned the damage is done and the data is already collected and used for all sort of things a CEO can think of. Neither the manufacturers nor the carriers will be interested in collecting more data now that they have what they were after, at least for the next few years. The very interesting part of the CIQ controversy for me was when I heard Apple was using CIQ in iOS 5 as well, a modified version of it. Apple technically is more than capable of creating their own CIQ and that is the reason it puzzled me to comprehend why Apple agreed to include it with their devices. iPhone has been around for a long time and I’m sure Apple has already collected/figured anything they need to know by now. The only significant change in iOS that would change user behaviour of iPhone’s users is the Siri feature. Is Apple using CIQ as an scapegoat?

In addition, I would like to response to Android Central Editorial’s Article “Carrier IQ -- the 'evil' we agree to and hate that we did it” by Jerry Hildenbrand. In particular to the following statement in the article:

“Carrier IQ, as a company, could care less what you do with your smartphone, when you do it, or why. All they do is make it easier for the people you give your money to each month to see why you like your phone.”

I guess medieval executioners could claim their jobs was just to cut the heads out only, asking about someone’s innocent wasn’t part of their job description. Which way round is it Jerry? Did CIQ came up with the spying software first and went to manufacturers and carriers to sell them licenses or was it custom-made order? This is evident to me that CIQ created the spying software and went to potential clients with their “noble” idea. Also if carriers really, I mean really, interested to know why we like our smartphones maybe they can start selling spare batteries along other accessories so that we can use our smartphones continuously. Not even a single carrier in the UK feel obligated to sell replacement batteries for the phones they stock, shame on them.

Edit:

Watch out Tablet users... You are NEXT

Correction:

Actually Apple was using Carrier IQ until version 5 of iOS.