Obama crackdown on Apple and Google harvesting details from smartphones without telling owners after privacy row



Outrage at companies such as Apple and Google scooping up personal data from mobile phones and internet services has led to President Barack Obama and the state of California cracking down on the problem.

Today Whitehouse officials outlined a proposed ‘Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights’, while California is clamping down on invasive mobile applications, ordering them to give people advance warning if they want to keep pulling sensitive information from smartphones and computer tablets.

‘As the Internet evolves, consumer trust is essential for the continued growth of the digital economy,’ President Barack Obama said in a statement. ‘That's why an online privacy Bill of Rights is so important. For businesses to succeed online, consumers must feel secure.’

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The effort comes as companies have found more sophisticated ways to collect and combine data on your interests and habits so they can target adverts accurately.

Beginning next week, for instance, Google will start merging data it collects from email, video, social-networking and other services when you're signed in with a Google account.

The growing use of smartphones and tablet computers adds another dimension to the tracking. Location information can give service providers insights into where you spend your time and, if you have friends who use the same services, whom you tend to hang out with in person.

Data collection can help companies improve and personalise services. It can also help advertisers fine-tune messages and reach the people most likely to buy their products and services - often without consumers even realising it.

That is why the administration is seeking more data protections for consumers.

How strong the protections will be ultimately depends on what rules parties can reach consensus on, the report said.

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The administration favoured a multi-stakeholder approach that has hints of self-regulation because legislation to enable traditional regulation would take time.

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission complained that software companies producing games and other mobile applications aren't telling parents what personal information is being collected from kids and how companies are using it.

Depending on how the guidelines are crafted, companies could be required to more prominently disclose when they collect such things as location, call logs and lists of friends - not just from kids, but everyone.

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The report is not intended to replace other efforts at offering privacy protections.

In California, Attorney General Kamala Harris has been discussing the need for better privacy protections with six powerful companies that have shaped the mobile computing market.

Those talks led to an agreement requiring mobile apps seeking to collect personal information to forewarn users by displaying privacy policies before their services are installed on a device.

The companies working with Harris are: Apple, the maker of the iPhone and iPad, Google, the Internet search leader and maker of Android mobile software, Amazon.com, the maker of the Kindle Fire tablet, Microsoft, which makes a mobile version of its Windows operating system, Research in Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry and Hewlett-Packard, which is donating its mobile software to the open-source community.

‘We are assuming everyone is going to cooperate in good faith and not get cute,’ said Harris, who plans to review compliance with the guidelines in six months.



Some developers have been proactive about the issue, though.

For example, a free app launched today by Lookout Mobile, called Ad Network Detector, shows users what information the ad networks within the apps on your phone can access.