Seems to me that the whole world is jumping on the ‘Carrier IQ is evil’ bandwagon. We should all wait and see – there are many perfectly valid (and perfectly benign) reasons to monitor network performance, and in most cases the only way to get the most accurate picture is to actually do this from the device itself – only it knows the precise network environment it’s facing at any time.
This is exactly the same behaviour as we see in the UK with the ‘offence’ caused by Jeremy Clarkson (from Top Gear UK) (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/dec/03/jeremy-clarkson-people-trains-sel…. Someone says something in a satirical context, it gets selectively quoted out of context, it gets publicised, and it seems like the whole world erupts in offence. I’m not defending Mr Clarkson (who does this just to sell his books at Christmas time, so it’s pretty cheap) but his words shouldn’t cause such offence. It’s the same behaviour that my 4 year old son sometimes deploys. He’s recently been through a phase of crying at the slightest thing. He’s now starting to realise that isn’t a workable or effective long-term strategy. Unfortunately I have less hope that the world will likewise grow-up.