Vodafone micro SIM application - unwanted, access to everything and uninstallable!
The SIM in my galaxy S3 died so I requested a replacement from Vodafone which duly arrived but having installed and activated the SIM I noticed a new app named Vodafone had appeared in the list of applications on the handset. The app just seems to provide links to 'allegedly' useful things but checking out the permissions of the app it has permission for just about everything, all your contacts, text messages, location, pretty much every permission in the android handbook!
Now as someone who likes to know what is or isn't happening on my handset I wanted to know where the app came from especially as it could be deleted, you could force stop it but it would restart and there was no way of uninstalling. Eventually Vodafone said it was on the micro SIM and is being rolled out to help customers. After the HTC Desire bloatware debacle I won't buy a branded handset again so was unhappy that Vodafone have found another way to put unwanted software on the device that the user can do absolutely nothing about, has access to all areas of the handset and can be used to extract information remotely from the device.
I hope El Reg will take this up and make Vodafone come clean about this, why does it need such a wide suite of permissions? If this is just to help customers then why aren't they being open about and let people choose not to install rather than force it on customers.Make it available on the app store so people have a choice.
Naughty Vodafone, go sit on the naughty step!