With the weeks of controversy surrounding over the issue that how the applications were handling customer data, several companies having a stake in the app game market including Apple, Microsoft, HP, Amazon, Google and RIM have agreed to new privacy protections for users of apps. The California Attorney General Kamala D. Haris announced.
“Your personal privacy should not be the cost of using mobile apps, but all too often it is,” said Attorney General Harris. “This agreement strengthens the privacy protections of California consumers and of millions of people around the globe who use mobile apps,” Attorney General Harris continued. “By ensuring that mobile apps have privacy policies, we create more transparency and give mobile users more informed control over who accesses their personal information and how it is used.”
The agreement importantly signifies a change from the way the millions of users download the Apps from the Apple’s App Store – giving an opportunity to review an app’s privacy policy before they download the app rather than after, and will also offer the users a consistent location for an app’s privacy policy on the application-download screen.
Moving a step further, the agreement further commits the platforms to educate developers about their “obligations” to respect consumer privacy and to disclose to consumers what private information they collect, how they use the information, and with whom they share it. The platforms will also work to improve compliance with privacy laws by giving users tools to report non-compliant apps and committing companies to implement processes to respond to these reports.
