HTC Desire :: Privacy Issues With Market Apps

There was an article on the BBC website a few days ago about a study that was done that found applications on the Android Market were transmitting information back like phone numbers, IMEI numbers and SIM serial numbers when the permissions were only for location, camera and audio data. (Original article: BBC News - Google Android apps found to be sharing data )

It appears that Google's response was something along the lines that the apps give the user the choice to continue with the install and it is up to the user to only install apps they trust. I for one think that I am a bit careful in what I choose to download (ie: why would an app for wallpapers want access to my contacts? etc) but how can you really know for sure it is only getting the info it says it wants and where are the boundries?

I don't know enough about programming and the like but was just wondering with the new Sense and other apps where you can remotely wipe your phone if stolen and other such things, if other companies (or even a kid in his bedroom who write a simple app game and gets access to your phone's details) have this info (IMEI number etc), how do you protect yourself? Am I just being overly paranoid? On the other hand, I don't want to have a phone and *not* download any apps!

Is there someplace that can explain what permissions would give me a definite "no" for certain types of apps? Something like "a game should never want access to x, y, z." Although this probably wouldn't help if the app was taking more info than it needs anyway from the particular 'permission'.

I had a quick browse of the actual research paper and a lot of it is just techno-jiggery to me but I do recognize some apps that I would have normally trusted (ie: Layars, Barcode Scanner, Astrid). I don't know if these particular apps took more info than they should have but it does make me wonder. (Research can be found from here: TaintDroid: Realtime Privacy Monitoring on Smartphones )