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All due respect, Apple should not need to use CarrierIQ.

They are a hardware company that sells the hardware it makes direct to consumer. They are perfectly positioned and quite capable of writing their own "rootkits".

Of course, when they do everything possible to prevent you from "rooting" the phone you purchase from them it's a tad more difficult to check for such things.

For the average non-technical iPhone customer it would seem next to impossible.

[pflats]

True, but it seems that CarrierIQ is, as its name implies, a service for the carriers. Since Apple doesn't let ATT et. al. customize iOS, it likely got into the OS as part of the bargain with them.

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Right. The way I see it, CarrierIQ gives carriers the kind of information that Apple could, in theory, gather quite easily. Maybe that was the idea behind CIQ? Just taking a wild guess.