In a report today, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is responding to the rising concern of consumer privacy on mobile devices with suggestions of ways to protect consumer mobile privacy.
The report calls to task Amazon, Apple, Blackberry, Google and Microsoft, app developers, advertising networks and analytics companies. The FTC provides these entities and other platform providers, with suggestions of how they should aware consumers of what apps intend to do with the personal data being collected from them. Third party App developers are asked to make privacy policies more clear and concise for customers to understand exactly how their information is being used and that they should seek the permission of the consumer before they share their information.
One suggestion in the report is the implementation of a "dashboard" feature so that users may clearly view the content being accessed by their downloaded apps. Also recommended to platform providers is a "Do Not Track" or DNT feature for smartphone mobile devices that run on OS. This implementation would allow customers the option to prevent third party and advertiser tracking while they are using their device.
"This is a report about best practices," said outgoing FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. "What we are really working on here is how to encourage best practices in this ecosystem and we think we are making progress." He added that the mobile marketplace could run the risk of facing federal privacy legislation if they don't consider the guidelines the FTC provided. "Privacy is the quintessential bipartisan issue in Congress," he said.
"FTC staff strongly encourages companies in the mobile ecosystem to work expeditiously to implement the recommendations in this report," the report said. "Doing so likely will result in enhancing the consumer trust that is so vital to companies operating in the mobile environment."
The FTC announced that Path, a mobile social networking app settled charges. It's alleged that they deceivingly collected personal information from the mobile address books of users without their knowledge or consent. About the settlement, Leibowitz said, "This settlement with Path shows that no matter what new technologies emerge, the agency will continue to safeguard the privacy of Americans."
