News

Suit Alleges App Makers Siphoning User Info

• By Chris Paoli
• March 15, 2012

According to a lawsuit filed in a Texas court this week, makers of some of the most popular mobile apps are collecting user information without the consumer's consent.

The suit against 18 companies, including Facebook, Apple, Yelp and Twitter, says some of the information collected include contact names, phone numbers, e-mail accounts and birthdays.

"The defendants -- several of the world's largest and most influential technology and social networking companies -- have unfortunately made, distributed and sold mobile software applications that, once installed on a wireless mobile device, surreptitiously harvest, upload and illegally steal the owner's address book data without the owner's knowledge or consent," stated the lawsuit.

It also alleges that information taken in secret is a direct violation of policies put into place by app distributers Apple, Amazon and Google. The suit points to research showing that app makers that harvest data can receive at least 60 cents per contact information when sold.

The lawsuit filed in a United States District Court is seeking to halt personal data collection and to have the companies named in the suit destroy any information collected.  

Lawyers representing the lawsuit defendants said this issue comes down to the basic notion that you shouldn't take what isn't yours.

"Every second-grader knows that's something, a standard that they should be held to, and we're going to ask the defendant companies, 'Shouldn't you?'" attorney Jeff Edwards said.

Path, one of the companies named in the lawsuit, publically apologized last month after it was discovered that the developer's photo sharing app uploaded an iPhone user's entire phone address book without permission.

This week's lawsuit also comes on the heels of Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google, Research in Motion and Hewlett-Packard agreeing to a privacy standard that would hold app makers accountable for notifying users on privacy matters.

The accord, sponsored last month by California's attorney general, will set a standard that mandates applications clearly state what personal information is being collected, when it will be collected and how the data will be used.

A similar lawsuit against Apple that was filed in a California court last year was thrown out after the plaintiff's lawyers were unable to prove that data collected by iOS apps did any harm to customers.