Mobile app stores to require, disclose privacy policies
Apple, Google and other mobile platform providers will present privacy policies for all the apps offered in their stores as part of an agreement with the state of California.
California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced an agreement developed with mobile platform companies including Apple, Google, Research In Motion, Amazon, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft, to ensure that all mobile apps will offer privacy policies that users can read before downloading the app. Although the plan technically only applies to apps in use in California, it will affect the global marketplace by making privacy policies visible to all users who download apps through the Android Marketplace, the App Store or any of the other platforms hosted by the participating companies.
Just 5 percent of all mobile applications offer a privacy policy, according to a study conducted by TrustE and Harris Interactive. (A developer survey conducted by the Future of Privacy Foundation found that one-third of apps offer such policies.) Even those that do have such policies often make the information available to users only after they have downloaded the app, which is when most programs grab data from the user's phone.
