Sprint is calling it quits on Carrier IQ. On Monday, Sprint addressed its critics head on and revealed that Carrier IQ software, which can be found on 26 million of its devices in the United States, is being nixed.
“We have weighed customer concerns and we have disabled use of the tool so that diagnostic information and data is no longer being collected,” Sprint announced in an email to Mobile Burn. “We are further evaluating options regarding this diagnostic software as well as Sprint’s diagnostic needs.”
In case you’re unfamiliar, the Carrier IQ software is what’s known as a rootkit that is installed at a carrier’s request on mobile phones. Carrier IQ raises user privacy concerns because it runs in the background and monitors and logs user activity. Carrier IQ is known to be installed on well over 100 million devices around the world.
Sprint and AT&T previously claimed that the Carrier IQ software and its collected data have only been used as a means to “improve service performance.”
As of this writing, Sprint has stopped collecting the data formerly obtained via Carrier IQ. What remains to be learned, however, is if Sprint somehow remotely axed the software on its devices or on its network.
