California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris and tech giants Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, HP and Research In Motion (RIM) have come to an agreement on now app makers should handle user privacy within mobile apps.
Through the terms of the new agreement, app makers will be required to have privacy policies. As it stands, 22 of the 30 most downloaded apps don’t have privacy policies. According to Harris, this leads to many people downloading and using apps, but not knowing how the information gathered through these applications can be used.
This would require app stores such as Apple’s App Store and Google’s Android Market to require privacy policies within apps. App makers violating their stated privacy policies would be prosecuted by Harris’ office, she said.
It will be interesting to see if this will truly affect app makers in any way. We don’t imagine it becomes much of a problem unless the app requires some sort of information from users.
[Via MyFox]
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Simplest and most effective solution would be for Apple to provide a firewall feature that let’s the -USER- set the rules for access. There’s an app to do so, if you jailbreak… why not at the App Store, or better yet, part of the OS?
Don’t hold your breath, because Apple doesn’t really want you to control what you share, and with whom. They want to control your info, so they can make more money off of you.
If the state or federal AG want to do something meaningful, they should push for the firewall as the ONLY acceptable solution. If you pay for an app, you should have the last word on external data sharing. If it’s a free app that depends on advertising revenue, they can easily set their apps to provide limited, or no, functionality if the outside connection is denied.