????來自《Roughly Drafted》雜志的丹尼爾?伊蘭?迪爾格在一則帖子中寫下這樣一段話：“如果要指出一些比不懂技術的媒體報道捏造的“位置門”虛假丑聞微妙之處更不恰當的行為，那么非歐美政客們打著調查的幌子進行監管的行為莫屬了。為了打探智能手機是否能夠記錄手機用戶所在位置，他們竟然將整頓經濟、住房、就業以及各類天災人禍問題撇在了一邊。而事實上，自從移動電話出現以來，移動基站塔和手機公司就一直在記錄手機用戶的位置信息?！?對于其在美國科技網站AppleInsider的讀者而言，這番話可能有些太過隱諱。

????圖片分享網站Tumblr 的合伙創始人、Instapaper的創始人馬爾科?阿門特在一篇文章中發表了相似的觀點，他這樣寫道：“如果人們知道Facebook和谷歌(Google)對自己的情況有多么了解，他們會同樣驚恐，甚至可能更加恐慌?！?/p>

????“一些網絡服務商可自行存儲數據并永久保存，用戶根本無法控制。只要需要，他們隨時可以讀取你的‘私人’信息”，并根據他人的匯總信息對你或其他任何人做出推斷，甚至遠超過你以為他們對你的了解。因為一個安全性漏洞，或是一樁有利可圖的商業交易，成千上萬人的私人信息頃刻間就會曝光。執法機關通常易如反掌地就能獲得想要的任何信息，因為很多服務商認為，為了保護用戶隱私而與執法機關爭辯很不值得，這既耗時又費錢?！?/p>

????與?？肯驈V告商出售用戶個人信息獲取收益的公司不同，蘋果公司（Apple）最初是因為銷售快速空間定位裝置能夠獲利而決定開發相關功能。這恰能解釋本周一爆出的據稱是史蒂夫?喬布斯與用戶的秘密往來電子郵件。

????問：史蒂夫，您能解釋一下在我的iPhone中，內置被動式定位跟蹤工具有何必要性嗎？知道自己的準確位置每時每刻都被記錄下來，這讓人感到非常不安?；蛟S你應該在我改用摩托羅拉Droid手機之前，做番解釋說明。Droid手機就不會跟蹤我。

????答：你錯了，摩托的手機會跟蹤你，而我們不會?，F在流傳的消息都不屬實。

????如果上述回信真的是喬布斯寫的，那他本應該做出澄清，畢竟個中區別的隱情也的確非常微妙。如果事實確如傳聞所說，蘋果的媒體智囊團仍然有大量機會可以詳細說明這場爭辯的原委。蘋果和谷歌已被傳喚參加將在五月舉行的美國參議院司法聽證會。法國、德國、意大利和韓國的立法委員已派專人調查此事。而美國佛羅里達州聯邦法院也接到了兩位分別購買了一部iPhone和iPad的用戶對蘋果公司的起訴，他們要求蘋果退款。

????"If there is anything less appropriate than a technologically ignorant media covering the subtleties of the manufactured LocationGate phony-scandal," writes Roughly Drafted's Daniel Eran Dilger, in a post perhaps too subtle for his usual AppleInsider audience, "it's the investigative policing by US and EU politicians who have suspended their efforts to rectify the economy, housing, employment and various other natural and man-made disasters in order to tackle the idea of whether smartphones might be recording one's location the same way mobile towers and phone companies have since the beginning of mobile telephony."

????"People would be similarly freaked out, if not more so, if they saw how much Facebook and Google know about them," wrote Marco Arment, the co-founder of Tumblr and creator of Instapaper, striking a similar theme:

????"Web services store the data themselves, outside of your control, and can keep it forever. They can access your 'private' data whenever they want, and they can aggregate everyone else's data to deduce even more about you (and everyone else) than what you thought they knew. A security breach — or a lucrative business deal — can expose the private data of thousands or millions of people at once, and law enforcement agencies can usually get whatever information they want extremely easily because it's not worth most services' time or money to argue with them."

????The difference between Apple, which is primarily motivated by the money it can make selling devices that can help you quickly locate your position in space, and companies that get most of their revenue selling information about you to advertisers, may explain the cryptic e-mail exchange attributed Monday to Steve Jobs:

????Q: Steve, Could you please explain the necessity of the passive location-tracking tool embedded in my iPhone? It's kind of unnerving knowing that my exact location is being recorded at all times. Maybe you could shed some light on this for me before I switch to a Droid. They don't track me.

????A: Oh yes they do. We don't track anyone. The info circulating around is false.

????Jobs, if that was indeed he, may have been making a distinction that was also a shade too subtle. If so, Apple's spin doctors will have plenty of opportunities to flesh out the argument. Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) have both been summoned to appear before a Senate judiciary hearing in May. Investigations have been launched by French, German, Italian and South Korean regulators. And Apple has been sued in a Florida Federal court by two guys who bought an iPhone and an iPad and want their money back.