Comments on: Study tracking people via cell phone raises privacy issues

Researchers determine people tend to stay close to home for months at a time by tracking 100,000 cell phone users in an undisclosed industrial nation outside the U.S.

[sanenazok]

What surprising results, people (presumably in Europe or Southeast Asia) don't move around.

Could it be because they have to work and don't go on vacation for 3 months at a time like professors do.

Also, good job on not getting consents, spend a little bit too much time in your ivory tower, did you?

[Beckdgc]

Check back tomorrow for our next shocking article, "Study: People tend to eat several times a day"

[SUNHEART]

No!...say it ain't so.

[CindyStanford]

The importance of academic research is understood through education combined with a careful review of source documentation. At minimum, reading the article in Nature and the AP article is advised for anyone feeling an urge to leave a snarky comment to this very brief blog post.

[willdryden]

Had they been tracking me, they would have found I don't leave my house with my cell phone. In fact, I have only carried it once when I left the house.

[cesaifoti]

The AP story is not true. Here is a statement of AP taking it back

http://www.pr-inside.com/correction-cell-phone-study-got-review-r629994.htm

And a statement from Northeastern University

http://www.neu.edu/nupr/news/0508/Ethics_Barabasi_Rese.html

[benjaminstraight]

Careful...

[losaramic]

I'm confused about why you think this was not an American study. According to another story about the same study, the leader of the study said:
"Mobility patterns are very important to quantify, because they affect everything from epidemic forecasting to urban road planning," said study lead author Marta C. Gonzalez, a professor at Northeastern University's Center for Complex Network Research. "But despite a big interest, there's been a lack of data, because it's very hard to track movement."

Northeastern U. is in Boston Massachusetts.