It isn’t hard for you to imagine a world where the smart phone is the center of most people’s online lives. From Tweeting about the Bucks to taking pictures of your next night out in Milwaukee, we’re all using smart phones more and more. The problem is, the rules regarding how our various apps and service providers handle personal data. Now there is a law that requires mobile apps to have privacy policies, just like many websites.
You know privacy policies; those large blocks of 5-point font that you skip past while signing up for new services. Trying to make the case that these will somehow protect users from data leaks is like assuming that thicker owner manuals will prevent speeding. I think in this case that Apple needs to join Google in listing all information that apps collect from your phone.
Now that isn’t going to do any good if you ignore those policies like you do the legalese. I think most users aren’t that concerned about privacy because they don’t have any idea what information is collected and who is collecting it. We all have things that we do and don’t care about companies knowing, but we should be given the chance to acquiesce to their tracking. This law would have been far more effective if the policies had been required to be presented in plain English.
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