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FTC Settles With Android Developer In Data Exposure Case
Trailrunner7 writes with some good/bad news concerning Android and privacy. Quoting the Threatpost article: "In a landmark move, the Federal Trade Commission has settled charges it brought against the maker of a P2P file-sharing application that the commission alleged included unfair default settings that caused users to unknowingly share photos, videos and other personal data. The settlement with FrostWire LLC may well be an indication that the federal government is going to be taking a hard look at the way developers set up their apps and what users know about the data they collect and share."
The settlement is pretty light: they have to change their defaults and give everyone affected an upgrade. FTC involvement in this is interesting: on the one hand people were unknowingly exposing private data; on the other hand, is FTC regulation of something like this a good thing? In the case of Free Software who does the FTC sue? How would they enforce any rulings?
Yes, this wouldn't be /. if the summary didn't spot libtards a starting point.
What a waste of limited bandwidth and battery life...
Or am I missing some very large good idea behind it?
Or government should be for generally. Ideally, government aggregates and applies the collective will and power of the people, for the good of the people, in those instances where individuals acting individually have little to no effect.
Not that the recent supreme court decision about binding arbitration runs counter to this principle.
He said "libertard," presumably referring to libertarians. Questioning government intervention would be the opposite of liberal policy. You anonymous trolls can't even get your politics straight.
The main purpose of the FTC is to protect consumers. This is what they did.
The company in question was accused of misrepresenting what their software does and fraud charges were filed so that a judge to could decide whether the company was guilty or not. The company settled out of court rather than face the judge, which is a fairly strong indication that they knew they were guilty.
This didn't involve any new regulations, no new powers were granted. Nothing has changed. The FTC did the job that they were created to do and nothing more.
But, of course, certain people believe anything the government does is nefarious. I'm sure you never drive on highways, either, because the DoT is a government agency and anything they're behind is automatically evil, right? And you've removed the seat belts and air bags that the DoT requires, too, yes? And you've replaced the DoT required laminated safety glass windshield with ever so breakable plate glass in the car that you never drive on the road, right? And you don't use the internet, because it came from a government funded project. And I'm sure you wish there as no FDA with it's nasty regulations because you long for the days of Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" since rancid butter and tuberculosis infected beef is so goddamn tasty.
I don't know how the iPhone does it, bur on Android we REALLY need a way to disallow some permissions for each applications. I mean, you install a photo retouching app or music player and it asks for full internet access, full flash card access, GPS position, camera and whatnot. I want the RIGHT to tell the app: 'no, you can't access the net' and not in a way that the app can understand and refuse to work, more in a way 'there's currently no connection'. Come on, it's not that hard to understand and not that hard to do.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Yes, the FTC regulating this is a good thing; no doubt many poster will blow this way out of proportion.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
OP reminds me of...
Remember google buzz and all the privacy issues?
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/google-google-buzz-google-lawsuit-google/11/4/2010/id/30935?page=full
When you do things for users with your applications that compromise their personal data, and don't let them consent to it, then your software has a problem. Do you realize the line for a coder between app that messes with you and app that works ONLY as it should is very grey?
The FTC is mostly lawyers and many of them go on to work as lobbyists for the companies they are charged to regulate. What kind of track record do they have for enforcing privacy policies?
Some of my favorites are Comcast who has a "protocol agnostic" network policy yet they block specific ports. Another is Cisco and Microsoft who maintain IP "reputation scores" and blacklists yet they won't tell people why they get put on the lists. Comcast went so far as telling me "it doesn't matter what our privacy policy says, you aren't getting the information." Of course these policies are enforced by TRUSTe who hired one of the FTC attorneys who helped set up the program.
In the case of free software, it depends on who made the privacy infringement. Did the copyright holder configure the default like that? If yes, sue him. If not, go down the chain until you find the bastard. You'll probably find a package maintainer next. Free software != Anonymous software. Unless your mailbox is on mailinator of course, in which case you track down the distributor (Linux distro people) to kick the package out of their system.
I'm more than capable of securing my own systems and have been doing so since the 1970's. Their involvement in the process *cannot possibly* benefit me.
Yes, because all laws are created purely on the basis of the benefit they provide to you, Mr AC personally.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it