OSNews

Eh, surely the same could be said of any phone? I don't see how this makes it look like Nokia have any more facilities for reporting usage data than any other manufacturer. For example, HP say they don't allow CarrierIQ either - but they don't say they don't use something else... So why "Busted"?

Now, I'm sure, oiaohm, that you would categorically deny ever raping your significant other.
But then the real question would remain, who did you rape?

(yes, this is the style of argument you made; one quite popular with ~political TV "reporters" / propagandists in few places, BTW)

-1 Articles from HuffingtonPost are not known for their objectivity on any particular subject.

They are good for gauging other people's reactions on subjects, like a messaging board. But if you take them more seriously than some guy's random post on digg, you're crazy.

The carriers just add a program to the OS before they flash it onto the phone and ship it. That doesn't violate the license for the OS, GPL or not.

That wasn't my impression, as android (or parts of it) are definitely linked to parts of Carrier IQ, which is why it is basically impossible to remove.

Bounty,

It may be a genuine case of the tools collecting the information, but they don't store it or look at it.

But even so the privacy concerns are still there. It's like selling a computer having a key logger installed, but it's ok because the vendor promises not to actually use it to spy on you.

Darkness,
"...software on handsets is more the responsibility of the phonemakers and android than the carrier."

Except it's hardly the fault of the manufacturers if the carriers require the software to be loaded, or if the carriers install it themselves.

"The carrier provides a phone service and network, people should be able to use whatever (legal) phone they want, without tampering by the carrier."

Ideally yes, but consumers should be able to buy phones from the carriers with the expectation that their privacy won't be violated.

I don't know who's at fault in this case, but it could just as easily be the carriers. I'd trace back where the data is going (whoever they are) and hold them primarily accountable.

So you think that it's unheard of because the option is available but we just choose not to exercise it? AFAIK, all the major carriers do not allow/do not support unlocked phones on their networks.

I think no contract plans are beginning to pick up some speed, though that's not the same thing as allowing unlocked phones. I use Boost, a smaller carrier that runs off of Sprint's network, which offers the cheapest unlimited plans on the market and only sells unsubsidized phones. However, I don't think that they're unlocked, and also I think that they only use CDMA and iDEN, so that rules out any third party GSM phones.

GSM networks support any GSM phone which will accept (which is unlocked) their SIM card (well, as long as sometimes-weird frequencies are accounted for; not much of a problem nowadays), that's the thing about GSM standard... GSM is GSM. And yeah, verified by some of my buddies who took (far) their own phones during a stay in your general region, for use with local networks.
(as for the other type of your local standards - as far as one can tell, they were meant to lock you in)

So it seems, at least, that you might have at large inaccurate perceptions about what's possible (aided by carrier PR, I bet), accept upgrade cycles and contracts as "inevitable".