I was responding to the commenter, not the article.<p>The reality is, the smartphone is just another in a very very long line of ways to gather information about folks.<p>Before the phone, there was credit rating agencies, who have access to your entire financial history, including credit card purchases, bill payments, bank loans, etc (for decades, now, Experian, Acxiom, etc, have known more about you could possibly imagine).  Then we got the loyalty&#x2F;reward cards, where people traded their purchase history for low low prices.  Then we saw the rise of the internet and cloud services of all kinds (Google and Facebook).<p>Frankly, I wouldn&#x27;t even put the phone at the top of my list of concerns, as at least my phone is on my person, and I have some level of control over it...