While smartphone applications are all the rage these days, experts continue to caution users to be careful about which ones they download.
Many privacy advocates and other security experts say that smartphone apps can have code that allow their movements or browsing habits to be tracked by the company that issued the program, according to a report from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina television station
WMBF. Last year alone, consumers spent as much as $35 billion on apps, and that number could grow even more in 2012.
More problematic is that, particularly on Google's Android Market, which has no app vetting process, programs can be created to look like one thing and do another, the report said. For instance, hackers could develop an app that looks like a calculator but actually steals login data for various websites, which can then be compromised.
Eduard Goodman, chief privacy officer for
Identity Theft 911, has a blog about the ways in which consumers might run into problems as a result of bogus or privacy-invading smartphone apps, and what they can do to avoid these issues.
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