MG Siegler at parislemon:

Dustin Curtis more directly states something I hit on earlier with regard to the Path address book situation:

I did a quick survey of 15 developers of popular iOS apps, and 13 of them told me they have a contacts database with millons of records. One company’s database has Mark Zuckerberg’s cell phone number, Larry Ellison’s home phone number and Bill Gates’ cell phone number. This data is not meant to be public, and people have an expectation of privacy with respect to their contacts.

This really isn’t a secret, ask around. There are a lot of apps you use on a daily basis doing the same thing. Some have for a long time. None (that I know of) are doing it to be evil, they’re doing it because it’s a connection/spreading mechanism that iOS allows for.

Let’s recap:

• Apple has left users’ address books open for a long time, and apps have been accessing them for a long time.
• Moreover, MG Siegler knew about this, for a long time.
• All the while, MG Siegler continues to talk about how iOS is secure and Android isn’t, and how Google is evil evil evil and hates users and doesn’t give a shit about privacy.
• Moreover, all the while, MG Siegler is funding and promoting apps that automatically upload users’ address books.
• Now, MG Siegler says this is not so good but those apps, and iOS itself, will change “soon”. Then he goes in for some “well, everyone’s doing it” defense.

Am I the only one to see a serious ethical problem here? If you do too, sign this petition!