He says it "underscores the need for congress to act."
No, this incident underscores the need for independent security professionals to keep an eye on what our devices are really doing so we can make informed choices.
What kind of informed choice can you make when the market is run by a conspiring oligopoly?
CarrierIQ is the case in point. It may be tracking a different subset of things on different devices but it seems to be on all brands and it seems to invade your privacy surrepticiously on all of them. These are the cases where regulation is required because otherwise your only choice is to forego smartphones altogether.
One kind of government regulation would be to prohibit building tools that would, for instance, track your location. I can see how that would harmful government intrusion.
Another kind of government regulation would be, for instance, to prohibit companies from intentionally lying when describing to the public what kind of personal information their devices record with the intent to conceal it. That kind of regulation would then allow customers to make the informed choices you speak of.
Companies can already get in trouble for "intentionally lying" it's called fraud. Of course, that's assuming a user reads the TOS and actually knows what they've agreed to accept.
Question: what are your thoughts on getting rid of legislative penalties for petty theft, and instead having independent experts keep an eye on regional rates of shoplifting so that retailers can make informed choices about where to open their stores?
No, this incident underscores the need for independent security professionals to keep an eye on what our devices are really doing so we can make informed choices.