Smartphone apps track users even when shut down - Business - The Boston Globe

Time for increased transparency in Android apps

"Zhang and fellow researcher Fuming Shih, a computer science doctoral candidate, found that some popular apps for phones running Google Inc.’s Android operating system are continually collecting information without informing the phone’s owner.
The popular game Angry Birds uses the phone’s GPS and Wi-Fi wireless networking features to track the owner’s location, even when he’s not playing the game, for example. Another game, Bowman, collects information from the phone’s Internet browser, including what websites the owner has been visiting. And WhatsApp, a popular text-messaging program, scans the user’s address book when it is seemingly idle."

Smartphone apps track users even when shut down - Business - The Boston Globe