iOS apps may be selling your information, according to newly-filed lawsuit

photo © 2010 Yutaka Tsutano | more info (via: Wylio)We’ve dealt with privacy issues before, when it comes to applications. The often-argued point about the Android Market is that the lack of oversight allows for applications that engage in malicious activity once they are loaded onto your device. Generally speaking, though, we’ve thought that we were safe from these follies on the iPhone.

According to Businessweek, a suit was filed in federal court in San Jose, California, seeking class-action status. That suit alleges that some iOS applications are able to identify and sell your information without your knowledge or consent. However, this suit goes further than the applications, to the point that Apple is being accused of making this all possible.

How so? According to the suit, iOS devices are encoded with “identifying devices” which would allow an advertiser to track information that is specific to the device owner. That identifying device, the UDID, is claimed to be used by advertisers to disseminate information that an application has acquired.

What is not immediately clear, however, is how the applications would come by the deeper data that is claimed to have been sold. Information such as age, gender, income, ethnicity and even sexual orientation is in question, and that information can only be gathered if it is entered via an application specifically.

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An Apple representative for Businessweek didn’t immediately return comment, but you can bet that we’ll be seeing more from Lalo v. Apple, 10-5878 in the very near future.