The last few months I followed the discussion on the Runkeeper(tm FitnessKeeper inc.) forum concerning spyware in their iPhone app. Runkeeper is a fabulous application for iPhone users who like to log their running, hiking, skiing, cycling and other sporting activities. It's far better than the better known Nike+ solution, which only counts your steps. Runkeeper is far better than Nike+. Runkeeper also logs your exact location by the built in GPS in the iPhone. Also speed, distance and many other things are logged and shared on a dashboard on the web. Streetteams of multiple friends also using Runkeeper motivate each other to keep doing their sports.
Spyware in an iPhone app? The discussion went hot about a library from Pinchmedia used by Runkeeper (both the free and the paid version). Is Pinchmedia spyware? I don't think that is true, Pinchmedia is a statistic tool for iPhone application developers to get information about the usage of their app. But when the Pinchmedia library is used in an iPhone app, data is sent to that 3rd party. Info such as usage time, gps location, type of phone and... your ip address. In The Netherlands the dutch provider T-Mobile, the only provider to sell the iPhone, gives every user his own ip address. Now that ip address is also known by Pinchmedia. So a 3rd party knows all about you and can locate your ip address to a exact location where you live. Scary!
On the forum I read the latest comments that Runkeeper stopped using the Pinchmedia library so your private info isn't sent anymore to a 3rd party. I compared the IP data of a old version of Runkeeper Free with a recent update and I can confirm that there is no more spyware in Runkeeper. Now I'll buy the paid version and start running!