President Obama will be unveiling the new Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights today in response to consumer tracking from mobile devices and on-line search tracking. The administration has been working on the bill of rights for online privacy for two years with industry leaders, privacy advocates, academics and enforcement agencies. On line tracking from Google and Facebook, among others, in order to generate sales leads, has felt like an invasion of privacy to a lot of consumers and this targeted advertising has become very obvious to users.
Over the last several months, Google has been notifying users of the updated privacy policies. Lawmakers and other consumer advocates have been filing complaints with the Federal Trade Commission over Google’s plan to consolidate their privacy policies and combine data on users from across all of it services and products.
Mobile data tracking is of particular concern given how rapidly Web surfers are purchasing smartphones and storing so much personal information on them. In 2011, lawmakers questioned Google and Apple over location based tracking capabilities in mobile devices and serious discussions were held late last year over Carrier IQ software found on mobile phones that critics said could be used to track consumers without their consent.
However, the laws are catching up with technology as the California Attorney General’s office has just announced that Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, HP and Research In Motion now require mobile app developers to include privacy policies in their apps. Apple has even just announced that iOS apps that collect user contacts without permission are violating the guidelines.
The administration has scheduled a news conference at noon ET and details are included in a report the government is issuing.
Some of the new policies include more individual control. Consumers will have a right to exercise control over what personal data companies collect from them and how the companies will use it. Another change will be improved transparency so that consumers have a right to easily understand and access information about privacy and security practices. Companies will need to provide clear descriptions of what personal data they are collecting, why they need the data, how they will use it and whether and for what purposes they may share personal data with third parties. Consumers will also have a right to expect that companies will collect, use, and disclose personal data in ways that are consistent with the context in which consumers provide the data.
There are more measures the administration will be issuing for improved consumer privacy as well. As Android training is more versed, a technical course for developers becomes more important all the time. For more information on this story, go to The Huffington Post.
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James says
I’m not sure what to think as far as this goes is it a bad thing or isn’t it? I’m not surprised that Obama is sticking his nose in it though; I have never seen such a control freak as he is. I guess we’lll just have to wait and see what happens next right? If he’s making the announcement this afternoon there really isn’t anything that can be done about it now.
Allison says
I have been staying on top of this bill as well as that dreaded SOPA and PIPA bills which were shot down only a couple of months ago when some of the world’s biggest websites, such as Google and Wikipedia, participated in a total blackout on one particular day when we all united to fight totalitarianism and stop the greedy entertainment empires from trying to take away our freedom of speech on the internet. I say to all Americans, DO NOT allow Congress to turn U.S. cyberspace into that of communist China.
FireStarter says
That’s right Allison. And this topic is much more important than Google sharing our information between their different applications. This issue concerns our ability to share information openly with a large amount of people at once.
Loretta says
On Wednesday Jan. 18th thousands of sites went dark to protest SOPA & PIPA, two US bills racing through Congress that threaten prosperity, online security, and freedom of expression. And I was relieved – at least for the time being – to learn that since November, 24 million+ internet users have helped to seriously wound SOPA and PIPA. Yet, Congress and Hollywood are still working on backroom deals. They need to keep hearing from us and we need to continue to write to them.
William says
I read that Twitter is going to Sell Two Years’ Worth of Old Tweets. Twitter recently announced a deal with the analytics firm Datasift that authorizes Datasift to sell the content of public tweets posted over the last two years. Companies who buy the data from Datasift will be able to market to users based on the topic or the location of the tweets. DataSift will be required to regularly remove tweets that users delete.
Tamika says
Yielding to strong opposition from the high tech community, Senate and House leaders will put off further action on legislation to combat online piracy. We know by now that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was postponing a test vote “in light of recent events.” Those events included a petition drive by Google that attracted more than 7 million participants and a one-day blackout by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. This indicates just how powerful the people can be when we unite.
Tory says
I am somewhat suspicious of this privacy act because we know that a few large corporations from the movie and music industry, including Sony and Paramount Pictures is trying to figure out a way to censor the internet. They already made their first attempt and failed miserably when they tried to bribe congressmen to pass the SOPA and PIPA acts. Thankfully, there was a huge worldwide public backlash as many including Google and Wikepedia joined in the internet blackout.
Shelley says
It is important to be discussing the World Wide Web Consortium’s new privacy standard and its implications for B2B branding. The W3C initial draft of The “Do Not Track HTTTP , which is a small bit of code that allows users to tell websites they do not wish to be tracked. This new standard affects our ability as marketers, to collect data about how users are interacting with the site and turn that data into insights that help us personalize our content and make it more relevant to the user.
Rebecca says
There is a sort of Ying and a Yang regarding the capabilities of technology and the benefits of such technologies and the invasiveness of certain marketing innovations. The trickiest part it seems is to find a balance. And isn’t that what the Ying Yang philosophy is all about? As I write this, I am watching a documentary about Bruce Lee and how his philosophies for mixed martial arts are typically about finding balance between styles.
Peter says
Speaking of this privacy act and the threat it poses to our freedom of speech, the government is trying underhanded things to try and censor the internet. Indefinite detention is about to become the law, and it is critical that everyone team up with Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, Daniel Ellsberg, RevolutionTruth and others to try to reverse it. The internet blackout worked to quell SOPA and PIPA acts, but now they are trying to pass laws inconspicuously.