PreCentral broke the news that...

FYI: The Pre Reports Your Location to Palm

Blogs like the Boy Genius Report gave it a nice ominous spin...

Palm Pre owners: Big Brother is watching

So, when I saw this subject line over at PhoneScoop...

Palm Issues Statement Over Palm Pre Privacy Concerns

...I was nearly certain I would read a statement from Palm dismissing it as a baseless claim. However, the purported response from Palm (I say "purported" because I don't see this statement on Palm.com itself or the Official Palm Blog) actually fully acknowledged that they are tracking Pre owner's location activity.

In one sense there is nothing ominous about this. After all, many of us routinely voluntarily let ourselves be tracked by apps like Google Latitude. However, most (if not all) of these location apps ask us for permission to track us. Palm, it appears, did not. And, that is what all the fuss is about.

Palm says they can be trusted. But as Fox Mulder (X-Files) used to say: "Trust no one".