Media Insider’s Android App

So I signed up to be one of Media Insider (a.k.a. Symphony)’s “insiders”. Turns out they’ll accept anyone. They just make you fill out a form that asks you things like your name, age, income, address, phone number, how many people live in your household, their ages and names, and what kind of TV services you use.

The app is a doozy. It turns on the microphone to listen to what you’re doing “intermittently throughout the day”, requires permission to see and track all of the apps you use on the device, and they want you to turn on their “M-Connect” “feature”, which is a VPN that intercepts all of your network traffic. The installation instructions for iOS are both cumbersome and outdated — and to me seem like a blatant violation of Apple’s enterprise developer rules.

But you might get up to $5 in gift cards a month.

★ Tuesday, 19 January 2016