The "App Scanner" is a brilliant idea and I look forward to seeing it launched. The biggest problem though (which is often the biggest problem in IT) is educating the users. The Android interface doesn't allow you to install these app's blindly. You get given a list of what the App is going to do and common sense should tell you that a flash light app doesnt need to have access to your location or address book.

Of course though the majority of the users haven't been told about this and are so used to the whole "just hit next and install already" attitude they never even think about looking at the small print. Hopefully the likes of articles like this and the "App Scanner" will help raise awareness and get people to think about what they are letting App's have access to.

It is scary though how some very popular app's collect massive amounts of data on you and nobody seems to care. A game called Tiny Towers for example recently did a stealth update outside of the marketplace without giving the user any option which completely blocked the game from running until you updated to the new version in the market place. The new version wanted access to GPS, Address book and SMS send&receive (as well as all the standard network access, etc you normally get on ad supported games). The scary part is the amount of people that seemed to update to this new version without even questioning it.