14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft publicly shared the source code related to Windows Phone 7 Wi-Fi location data collection in order to address privacy fears expressed by consumers and officials.
Earlier this year when researchers discovered iPhone files filled with what appeared to be location information dating back months, a lot of people accused Apple of tracking them.
It eventually turned out the files were part of a mechanism used to build a global map of publicly accessible Wi-Fi access points.
When correlated with geographical coordinates the data can improve location detection when GPS is not available.
The same type of system is used by other smartphone OS developers including Microsoft and Google to build their own databases.
The Apple incident prompted official scrutiny into these practices and raised questions related to how, when and for long this data collected is being collected. All of the three companies rushed to defend their own approaches and express their commitment to privacy.
"Today, Microsoft is sharing relevant portions of the source code for our managed driving data collection software to provide those interested an opportunity to review the code we use for collection of such information," announces Reid Kuhn, Partner Group Program Manager, Windows Phone Engineering Team, Microsoft.
"The code, developed by the Windows Phone Engineering team, uses publicly documented interfaces for accessing cell tower, Wi-Fi data access point and GPS data," he adds.
The code is hosted on MSDN from where it can be downloaded by anyone and used as a reference for their own implementations. Kuhn stresses that the code does not intercept or record wireless transmissions.
This is a subtle reference to Google's problems with regulators after its Street View cars collected data passing over public wireless networks due to a glitch in the software.