Sure, we’ve all heard that mobile software applications collect more personal data from our smart phones than they need to or should; and the mobile apps’ privacy policies are such a byzantine morass, none of us read them anyway. But the news that the most popular children’s mobile software apps are surreptitiously collecting and then selling to dozens, even hundreds, of marketers and third parties exactly where our children are at all times, what their mobile phone numbers are, and where exactly they go and what they do online, and that this all being done without notice to parent or child…well that creeps out even the most jaded adult.
Yesterday, December 10, 2012, the Federal Trade Commission released a detailed Report replete with research and data that demonstrates the most popular mobile software apps designed for, marketed to, and used by our children are doing all of this, and in so doing, may be running afoul of numerous federal and state consumer protection/deceptive advertising and privacy laws.
The 12/10/12 Report is a follow-up to a February 2012 FTC report wherein the FTC surmised that there may be significant privacy issues with mobile apps designed for and targeted to children. After releasing the February 2012 report, the FTC did its homework: it investigated 400 popular children’s mobile software apps; it reviewed the apps’ stated privacy policies; and it tested the apps’ actual data collection and tracking practices. What it found is troubling, to say the least.
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