Location data is a big business for these companies, as the data allows them to provide location-based services such as target advertising, or play a critical role in check-in applications like Foursquare or Facebook's system. However, these companies have also had a about it, since some consumers may see it as a breach of their privacy.

So far, Apple has seemed to get the brunt of , however they are not the only one doing it. As you read above, Google's real interested in it -- and . About the only company we haven't heard any confirmation yet that some type of data collection is going on is RIM, but I'd be surprised if it was not.

Regardless of what these companies are doing with this location data, in my opinion they should also be giving consumers the right to opt out of the collection. So far, Android is the only operating system that allows for this: to my knowledge you cannot turn the tracking off in either Windows Phone nor iOS.

iOS does allow for the opting out of location based services, but it is yet unclear if that stops the tracking that so many privacy advocates are up in arms about.