Buyers cheated by location tracking app
By Zhu Shenshen |
January 7, 2012, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
ENTER a phone number on your iPhone and get the user's location on Google Maps within seconds. It sounds fantastic - but it's not true.
At least several hundred Chinese buyers found they were cheated after paying 18 yuan (US$2.85) each for an iPhone application that claimed to have been developed by China Mobile and able to track user location.
Apple Inc, which put the 2011 China Mobile Phone Tracker Spy Pro: Location Anyone application in its top 10 apps in the China App Store, should better examine and verify apps to help consumers, industry officials said.
China Mobile denied having any relationship with the app yesterday.
Apple would only provide an e-mail address (applestorenotices@apple.com) for users to give feedback on apps after purchase. It didn't promise to help users get their money back.
More than 790 customers in China complained that the application lacked location functions and rated it one star, the lowest of Apple's five-star rating system.
The app, developed by Chen Lunyu according to the App Store, remains on sale. But the App Store adds a new description, saying it is "for entertainment purposes only and does not provide true phone tracking functionality."
Without permission, it's impossible for people to know others' location with legal methods.
The issue is wrought with privacy concerns. Apple and Google have upgraded their mobile systems after they were criticized for collecting users' location data.
At least several hundred Chinese buyers found they were cheated after paying 18 yuan (US$2.85) each for an iPhone application that claimed to have been developed by China Mobile and able to track user location.
Apple Inc, which put the 2011 China Mobile Phone Tracker Spy Pro: Location Anyone application in its top 10 apps in the China App Store, should better examine and verify apps to help consumers, industry officials said.
China Mobile denied having any relationship with the app yesterday.
Apple would only provide an e-mail address (applestorenotices@apple.com) for users to give feedback on apps after purchase. It didn't promise to help users get their money back.
More than 790 customers in China complained that the application lacked location functions and rated it one star, the lowest of Apple's five-star rating system.
The app, developed by Chen Lunyu according to the App Store, remains on sale. But the App Store adds a new description, saying it is "for entertainment purposes only and does not provide true phone tracking functionality."
Without permission, it's impossible for people to know others' location with legal methods.
The issue is wrought with privacy concerns. Apple and Google have upgraded their mobile systems after they were criticized for collecting users' location data.
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