[judk]

How does Swype make their money? I thought it is a paid app, so why do they need analytics? Are they secretly selling user corpus data?

That post has some really wishy washy handwavy explanations for how IMEI spoofing etc supposedly ruins Swype analytics. I don't buy it.

[fpgeek]

Swype's issues with spoofing date back to before they were a paid app (that only happened last year). At the time, there were only two ways to get Swype:

1. Your device manufacturer paid to include Swype in their default keyboard (no IMEIs requested or desired, AFAIK). That was where they made their money, at the time.

2. You signed up for Swype's beta program, to get a free version of Swype directly from them (which you sideloaded, possibly on multiple devices and/or ROMs). To me, whether or not they "really" needed IMEIs for their statistics is beside the point. Gathering those statistics was the only thing they were getting out of their beta program, so if you didn't like that deal you should just not participate - not spoil it for other people by giving false information.

[kpozin]

The paid version of Swype still collects location information (or at least uses the location API, according to my phone). Paying users of the keyboard would be quite justified in trying to prevent Swype from getting that information.