We just set foot inside Carrier IQ's offices in Mountain View, California, and spoke face-to-face with Andrew Coward, the VP of marketing for a company currently embroiled in a scandal of senatorial proportions. If you've been anxiously awaiting a formal comment from the company, we've got good and bad news. When we asked, Carrier IQ would not directly address security researcher Trevor Eckhart's alleged video evidence of the Carrier IQ agent's worrisome behavior, but Coward told us the company hopes to do so soon — after it has external security companies conduct independent validation of the privacy implications in that same video. "We stand exactly by the statements we made, and have no further comment at this time," Coward told us, but added that once such testing is complete, "we'd like to be as open as we can about this." It may sound like the company is turtling, but it makes sense that Carrier IQ would want to clear its name. We imagine readers like you would be much more inclined to believe an independent security firm than take an accused company at its word.

Update: Below, find a video of Andrew Coward explaining the Carrier IQ business model. Near the end, Coward says that Carrier IQ's clients "seek the permission of users before we gather their data" and claims that all data is encrypted before transfer.