Accu Weather app. lawsuit claims it can track a users' location "to within a few feet."
Seattle, WA - Unhappy customers say in a federal class action that an AccuWeather application that comes installed on EVO smartphones tracks users' location "to within a few feet," and transmits the unencrypted data over the Internet so it can be used to "display behaviorally targeted advertising to those users" - and there's no way to disable the app.
Lead plaintiffs Chad Goodman and Jon Olson sued HTC America, which makes the Android-based EVO 3D and 4G smartphones, and AccuWeather.
They say the app, which was installed "ostensibly to make weather information conveniently available," tracks "unnecessarily precise" data for a weather forecast.
"In actuality, defendants have used and continue to use the application to track plaintiffs' exact geographic location for defendants' own purposes unrelated to weather information," according to the complaint.
"The location data defendants cause plaintiffs' smartphones to transmit to AccuWeather is based on GPS coordinates and is accurate to within a few feet of where plaintiffs are holding their smartphones. This location data is unnecessarily precise for displaying local weather information on plaintiffs' smartphones; HTC smartphones are equipped to transmit 'coarse' location data accurate to within a few blocks and which takes less of a toll on plaintiffs' Internet data usage and battery life," according to the complaint.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/10/28/41016.htm
Court Filing: http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/10/28/AccuWeather.pdf