1. there's a vast difference between a third party simply tracking which sites i visit vs an app having access to my GPS location, address books, call history,

1. there's a vast difference between a third party simply tracking which sites i visit vs an app having access to my GPS location, address books, call history, etc.., whenever it pleases. with a web browser, i can "share my location" as i desire...if i want to find nearby restaurants on yelp's mobile site, i'll share my location once. with an app you just say "yes, you have permission to read my gps", you have no control of when or how often it does this. 2. on my desktop, there's no guarantee that any specific info will be in the same place. for example i use thunderbird portable in an encrypted container for my email and contacts. on a phone, your contacts are pretty much in the same place and every app knows how to get to them, there's much less variance. 3. you may have a point, but without a good mobile site, they can coerce people to use the app by providing a shitty experience in the browser, cause an app can get to a lot more of your juicy data which they crave.