Apple Inc. is being sued after an iPhone user discovered from a Wall Street Journal investigation that mobile applications are using an anonymous user-tracking device to send personal information from the smart phone to various ad networks.

“Your Apps Are Watching You” was the name of Wall Street’s article on Dec. 17, that looked into how over 101 smart phone apps were breaching the privacy of their users.
The investigation found that 56 of the applications were transmitting the phone’s Unique Device ID (UDID) without the consent of the user.
47 apps were found transmitting the location of the phone, while five transmitted the age, gender, and other personal information to outside companies.
“Among the apps tested, the iPhone apps transmitted more data than the apps on phones using Google Inc.’s Android operating system,” the article said.
For once, Apple is set to bring out the same product all over again, warmed over. And for two reasons, the company will get a pass for it. The Verizon iPhone 4 is yesterday’s news, literally last year’s product once the calendar rolls over in a few days, and yet it’ll be the famine Verizon customers will be asked to feast on for the first segment of Verizon iPhone era.

At the moment, Verizon customers don’t care that they’re about to be served the Monday blue plate special on a Tuesday, as they’ve been waiting long enough that they’ll take whatever they can get. But while it may not be worth waiting for, it’s worth keeping in the back of their minds that the real payoff is coming later. When iHistory writes itself, the Verizon iPhone 4 (click here for more info) will be viewed in hindsight as a mere dalliance, a brief window in which an outdated product was cleverly or clumsily re-jiggered for temporary compatibility reasons. And the real Verizon iPhone era, the “show me the money” point of no return, will come with the Verizon iPhone 5.