Smartphone users sue Apple, Facebook over mobile app privacy Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and Apple, Foursquare and 13 other prominent social media firms have been hit with a lawsuit accusing them of supplying mobile applications that invade users' privacy. The class-action lawsuit was filed by 13 private individuals in Austin, Texas – where geek tech fest SXSW has just shut up shop. The …
The only way to stop Apple, Facebook etc. invading users' privacy is to sue them and be successful. If law suits are successful and the lobby big enough then legislation might be enacted stop them.
Of course, legislation will only ensue if the effective lobby from users greatly exceeds the paid lobbyists from Apple etc. (that's how our democracies work these days).
In the UK it's called the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
If I do not authorise you to access my photo's using a backdoor in your app, then it's "go to jail" time.
>IF< anybody can explain the law to the Met, we might actually get some enforcement done. (for example on unauthorised access of voice mail systems)
Violation of S1/CMA90 is up to 12 months (E&W) or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both;
Any smartalec US firms that think their EULA small print covers it, sorry your EULA is probably unlwaful under the EU Unfair Contract Terms directive
Even worse, I am not even a user of any of these social networks and yet they have all my details because some twat I'm real-life-friend with or someone from my family (at least I can choose my friends!) has given away my phone number, address, birth date, emails and god knows what in *his* address book.
How can this state of affair be allowed when even if these site's users were to agree to their T&Cs, they have no right to include unsuspecting third-party data without their knowledge and consent.
That's a very good point you make there sir! If my details are in your address book, that doesn't give these A**H*** companies the right to slurp MY details from your address book, EVEN IF YOU have given them permission to splurp YOURS!
This raises another interesting question vis-a-vis the DPA - If I have the names & addresses, telephone numbers, emails, birthdays and other information about friends and aquaintances in my address book on my computer, does that also place me under the constraints of the DPA? Thereby making me liable to prosecution if that data leaks from my control (as the data controller of the data on my PC)?
Social networks are all about being sociable, that is telling everyone (that will listen) about yourself and your 314,143 and 1/4 friends, only you haven't the time so the apps do it for you.
Whoever thought that placing your personal information in the public domain was a private matter seems to have got their wires crossed and has no idea how the services they use are paid for.
I didn't realize that giving my personal information to my grandad or my nephew was the same thing as placing it in the public domain. Yet, according to you, this is what happens when they then upload their address book to Twitbook and the likes and I should just live with it?
I refuse to sign up to Facebook, Google+, Twatter, et all for reasons personal to me, except I am not even given the choice as some mate decided to put my number in his address book and I am automatically included in Zuckerbergs weird little dimension for the very fact that my number is attached to one his brainwashed and braindead minions!
I signed no T&C and I made no request to sign up, so I don't want my details bandied around like so much wind blown confetti without my consent, OK?!
I'm not personally interested or involved in any of the 'social media' apps or organisations, but I do use Apple kit and I'm interested to know the context in which these allegations are being made. My email, for example, is handled by Apple servers and therefore a large part of my communication is constantly uploaded to Apple. I also use iCloud, so the full contents of address books, notes, bookmarks, some files, etc are also constantly uploaded to Apple. However, this is all covered by a pretty strict privacy agreement and is done with my knowledge and consent.
But in what context is Apple secretly harvesting information from me? Is it for some other service, or do they see Apple as an accomplice because they provide the framework (OS and hardware) in which 3rd party apps secretly extract data? If the latter is true, does this mean all OS vendors are culpable if any hosted application behaves illegally, e.g. we could sue Microsoft if the OS allows malware to run?
There is a very serious distinction to be made here. I don't like the idea that companies entrusted with our data make secret gains from it. But a blanket, "we'll sue you if any of our data is uploaded", is completely ridiculous - that's how much of the Internet works, e.g. synchronising contacts via the cloud. Privacy laws need to clearly define both the context in which data uploading is legal, and who is culpable for a breach. If they don't, we'll see a new breed of 'privacy trolls' lining behind the patent variety (with equally damaging results).
"I'm not personally interested or involved in any of the 'social media' apps or organisations, but I do use Apple kit and I'm interested to know the context in which these allegations are being made. My email, for example, is handled by Apple servers and therefore a large part of my communication is constantly uploaded to Apple"
Oh well, nothing to worry about there then!
Really, it doesn't matter if it's Apple, Google or Microsoft, we are all just currency to them.
Live in the 21st century and be"traded", or live in the "dark ages" and keep your privacy (to an extent - after all your mates iPhone's got you contact details in it, so no matter what you do, 'they'' have got you).
@Obviously!: "...it doesn't matter if it's Apple, Google or Microsoft, we are all just currency to them."
So you're alleging that Apple doesn't honour its privacy policy and extracts data from my email and private files held in iCloud? If true, that's a very serious crime - do you have any evidence, links, proof of any kind? Or is this just another way to say, "I hate Apple"?
Strict terms and conditions?
You may be asked to provide your personal information anytime you are in contact with Apple or an Apple affiliated company. Apple and its affiliates may share this personal information with each other and use it consistent with this Privacy Policy. They may also combine it with other information to provide and improve our products, services, content, and advertising.
.....Because this information is important to your interaction with Apple, you may not opt out of receiving these communications.
We may collect information such as occupation, language, zip code, area code, unique device identifier, location, and the time zone where an Apple product is used so that we can better understand customer behavior and improve our products, services, and advertising.
We also may collect information regarding customer activities on our website, iCloud and MobileMe services, and iTunes Store...... This information is aggregated....Aggregated data is considered non-personal information for the purposes of this Privacy Policy.
So in other words, you have no privacy.
"Foursquare ... mobile applications that invade users' privacy."
Well, um, yeah. An app that makes public posts on social networking sites when you check in at a place. Every time I see someone check in at a place using Foursquare and similar, I link them to pleaserobme.com
It's like people are aware of but completely ignoring these things.
It's funny how applications can do the same on your computer with no warning and there's no controls to stop it either. Yet nobody complains or even know about it?
Why are phones different? possibly because people trust app stores to weed out the bad applications. Plus people keep more personal data on their phones (not everyone has phone numbers on their PC).
But ultimately it has been proven that mobile app developers can't be trusted and so further controls are going to be needed. This is a shame as it means huge annoyances in having to authorise access to so many APIs when running an application.
If this is true, heads need to roll. Every programmer and exec involved who didn't fight this internally deserves to be sued into a corner so black-hole dense s/he will make him/herself unborn and not come back for 5,000 years.
This is why I don't give responses to the birthday apps and all those damned facebook games. I reject even relatives, because they are being stupid and not considering that putting my details in some fracking 3rd party app is an act that deprives me of my right to selectively say, "NO".
Facebook and all the others KNOW and calculate their decisions to create these data dragnets.
And, governments that are data savvy know it too, and that is why so far they are mute on this. Social sites are the Data Hoovers the governments themselves claim they are not allowed to be, and though there are rules, laws, and constructs, these companies operate in flagrant impunity.
If their buildings implode or get ransacked by human hands, or collapsed by quakes, floods, or hurrinados, I will clap for every person whose data was vacuumed by surreptitious means.
Privacy is supposed to mean privacy, not a la cart access.
Maybe someone should start passing out small cards warning kids not to grow up data-dumb, and to be data-privacy-concerned.
Just curious, as I set up an account a while ago at the behest of a few professional friends. As I worked my way thru the registration process (torturous bloody interface that it is - messy & designed to confuse at first glance, to my eyes at least) my computers address book was hoovered up - friends, family - the lot, necessitating a manual cull of the uploaded info after I had finished. Now,obviously, I messed up somewhere in the process - However, after all was done, I was left with the feeling that somehow I had been mildly misled by a process & UI that seemed to me intentionally awkward & obfuscated. I have seldom use Linkedin after that.
(As an aside, every time I ask some with an account if they've garnered any genuine business out of it, so far they've all said "no".)
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