FTC cracks down on comprehensive data security for Utah company
Thursday, November 14, 2019 by Richard Harris
A Utah-based technology company has agreed to implement a comprehensive data security program to settle Federal Trade Commission allegations that the company failed to put in place reasonable security safeguards, which allowed a hacker to access the personal information of a million consumers.
InfoTrax Systems, L.C., provides back-end operation services to multi-leve...
New app for marathon runners
Friday, November 1, 2019 by Richard Harris
New York Road Runners in collaboration with its title sponsor, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), launched the official race app for this year’s TCS New York City Marathon. With its extensive enhancements, the award-winning app creates a best-in-class experience for runners and spectators at the world’s most technologically advanced marathon, occurring on Nove...
FTC cracks down on stalking apps
Thursday, October 24, 2019 by Freeman Lightner
The Federal Trade Commission has barred the developers of three “stalking” apps from selling apps that monitor consumers’ mobile devices unless they take certain steps to ensure the apps will only be used for legitimate purposes. The settlement resolves allegations that these apps compromised the privacy and security of the consumer devices on which th...
FTC extends comment deadline on COPPA Rule
Tuesday, October 22, 2019 by Freeman Lightner
The Federal Trade Commission is extending the deadline to submit comments on the effectiveness of the amendments the agency made to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA Rule) in 2013 and whether additional changes are needed. The deadline was originally October 23, 2019; it is now December 9, 2019.
The FTC announced that it would accep...
Match.com gets sued by FTC for using fake love interest ads
Thursday, September 26, 2019 by Christian Hargrave
This just in from the FTC. The Federal Trade Commission has sued online dating service Match Group, Inc. (Match), the owner of Match.com, Tinder, OkCupid, PlentyOfFish, and other dating sites, alleging that the company used fake love interest advertisements to trick hundreds of thousands of consumers into purchasing paid subscriptions on Match.com.
The agency also al...
CARU refers Musical.ly to FTC
Monday, April 30, 2018 by Christian Hargrave
The Children’s Advertising Review Unit has referred The Musical.ly Inc., operator of the Musical.ly mobile application, to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), after the company said it would not comply with CARU’s recommendations regarding children’s privacy.CARU is an investigative unit of the advertising industry’s system of self-regulation. CARU monitors websites and...
Four privacy questions every developer needs to answer
Wednesday, September 13, 2017 by Morgan Reed
Over the past twelve months, the internet-connected doll My Friend Cayla went from one of the hottest toys of the holiday season to an internationally-classified "espionage device." The doll was the subject of an FBI warning, banned from sale or ownership in Germany, and eventually dropped from every major retailer in the United States. Despite the nearly universally hi...
The intersection of AR, IoT, and Apps in the legal realm
Thursday, April 27, 2017 by Adam Grant
In 2007 the Apple gave us the iPhone and Apps became the rage. While the term “Internet for things” was first coined 1999 by Kevin Ashton (one of the founders of the original Auto-ID Center at MIT), in 2013 the Global Standards Initiative on Internet of Things defined the term as “the infrastructure of the information society.” AR, or Augmented Reality, unlike virtual r...
How Trump will affect the technology industry
Friday, January 20, 2017 by Gary A. Griffiths
To many, it seemed like we’d never make it to 2017. After a bruising presidential campaign, perhaps the longest in electoral history. But here we are, our first true, post-election year in eight years. For me, these years are always fun, with soaring hopes dashed and ill tidings avoided. Moreover, it’s during these post-election years that we quietly return to the ...
Creating Apps for Kids What It Means to be COPPA Compliant
Wednesday, January 27, 2016 by Gai Havkin
A cute little interface and amazing content is often thought to be the right recipe for a killer app for kids. No doubt these are the main ingredients, but in order to have an app that’ll truly make it in the long run, a developer must be very thoughtful regarding the app’s monetization strategy AND genuine kid-friendliness - not only in interface and content - but also...
Microsoft Provides Windows COPPA Support for App Advertising to Kids
Wednesday, September 2, 2015 by Stuart Parkerson
Microsoft is releasing COPPA support in its Dev Center to help developers define how to manage ads in apps whose primary audience is children.Beginning in September, developers can indicate if their app targets children under 13 as defined in the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). If a developer selects this option, Microsoft will disable its behavioral a...
Find the Sweet Spot With Three Tips to Avoiding Misleading Native Ads
Saturday, July 18, 2015 by George Makkoulis
One of the most effective types of advertising today is native advertising, in which the advertisement blends in with the form and content around it. Sometimes the ads blend in so well that the reader doesn’t realize (or hardly notices) they are looking at an ad.In 2013, when discussing The Future of Native at The Native Advertising Summit in Atlanta, Patrick Albano, VP...
FTC Weighs In On its Activities in Relation to IoT
Sunday, March 1, 2015 by Richard Harris
What impact the recent FCC ruling on its regulatory control of the Internet through its net neutrality decision will have on the app development industry varies widely on who you ask. Everyone is going to have an opinion and its going to be an interesting ride.However, maybe just as impactful will be the involvement of the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on...
The Application Developers Alliance Calls Out FTC Ruling As Falling Short
Thursday, December 11, 2014 by Richard Harris
The Application Developers Alliance forcefully criticized the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed agreement to end enforcement litigation against a notorious patent troll for being too weak and failing to deter future bad behavior by this troll or others. The Commission had sued MPHJ Technologies for sending deceptive patent demand letters to thousands of businesses and...
O Brother, Where Art Thou How New Laws Are Governing the Collection and Use of Geolocation Information Inside Apps
Saturday, September 20, 2014 by Adam Grant
Trying to find out where someone is located is valuable information for businesses and attorneys, but there are new laws winding their way through Congress which directly impact how this information is obtained. In 2000, George Clooney appeared in the Joel and Ethan Coen comedy titled O Brother, Where Art Thou? The Coen brothers’ movie created the story as a modern...
The Success Checklist: What mHealth Investors and Entrepreneurs Should Know
Monday, August 11, 2014 by Lisa Clark
A healthcare start-up developer has an intriguing concept for an app or a software solution. It may be an app tied to a sensor that is designed to transmit a diabetic’s blood glucose levels to her physician, or an app that has a proprietary algorithm that analyzes a heart patient’s water retention to predict congestive heart failure.The developer has partners who may ha...
New Regulations to Protect Kids Is Driving Change In the Mobile App Industry
Wednesday, July 23, 2014 by Stuart Parkerson
The European Commission is reporting that Google has agreed to change the way it designates free apps. This is following what the Commission has said have been a large number of complaints in EU countries concerning in-app purchases in online games and in particular, inadvertent purchases by children.According to a recent EU commission announcement, “Google has dec...
IoT meets VR: The Next Concern Over Mobile Privacy
Wednesday, April 23, 2014 by Adam Grant
In the beginning of this year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, it seemed as if every sponsor and vendor was introducing a product that demonstrated a deep commitment to mobile technology and its interaction with the “Internet of Things.” Clearly, 2014 appeared to be the year mobile technology would move from a consumer’s interaction only with th...
App Law and Which Way I Ought To Go From Here
Tuesday, April 1, 2014 by Adam Grant
On March 21, the FTC issued a press release that caused me
to reflect on a certain piece of famous literature I read as a child. As I read
the press release, I thought about Lewis Carroll’s timeless classic, Alice in Wonderland, and how it could
provide guidance to mobile app developer’s when considering how the law
regulates a child’s use of an app. Lewis
wrote t...
The Price of FREE Apps for Kids: The App Developers Quandary
Tuesday, February 11, 2014 by Eldad Ben Tora
According to Flurry, a
service which continuously monitors mobile applications, the percentage of "free
apps” rose to 90% in 2013. This indicates that nine out
of ten app developers realized that they were either unable or unwilling to ask
for compensation for the product they laboriously developed up front.
When the clear standard cost for
apps is fre...
Can The FTC Ruling Causing Apple to Refund Consumers Affect My App Developer Revenue
Thursday, January 16, 2014 by Richard Harris
The FTC and Apple have reached a settlement to award consumers (parents of small children mostly) a total of $32.5 million dollars in refunds from in-app purchases and app downloads that were charged to their iTunes accounts without their consent.
FTC Commissioner Edith Ramirez said that Apple failed to notify parents that once they enter their Apple passwo...
FTC Questions Just How Much Light Flashlight App Sheds on Amount of Information Obtained from Users
Monday, December 9, 2013 by Adam Grant
On Friday, December 5, 2013, the FTC announced it settled charges against Goldenshores Technologies, LLC, the company behind the “Brightest Flashlight Free” App. According to the release, the app has been downloaded tens of millions of times by users of the Android operating system. The FTC claimed the company’s privacy policy failed to tell users the app collected th...
From Lemonade and Lucy to COPPA and Cookies
Sunday, December 8, 2013 by Adam Grant
On July 1, 2013, the Child Online Privacy Protection Policy
(“COPPA”) dramatically altered how we think about cookies
Growing up as children in the US, our first taste of
commerce involved selling lemonade in front of our house on a sweltering summer
day, or wondering what justified the hefty price of 5 cents Lucy charged
Charlie Brown for psychiatr...
ADM Weekly News Roundup For December 7th, 2013
Saturday, December 7, 2013 by Richard Harris
From the Editors DeskThe December issue is here and we invite you to check it out! There are several editorials in this issue geared towards our end of the year thoughts, and need to know info to help you launch into 2014 wtih a bang! Speaking of, we are gearing up for our first event coming in February; Apps World North America in San Francisco and it is look...
FTC to Discuss Emerging Consumer Privacy Issues in Spring 2014 Seminars
Wednesday, December 4, 2013 by Adam Grant
On Monday, December 2nd, the Federal Trade Commission announced three consumer privacy issues it plans to examine in 2014. As part of this initiative, the FTC will hold three events in 2014 that focus on mobile tracking, consumer online scoring and user-generated health data next year. The first seminar on February 19 will discuss technology that allows business to trac...
What Is The Apps Act of 2013
Monday, October 7, 2013 by Adam Grant
In January 2013, the California
Attorney General issued a report
entitled, Privacy on the Go;
Recommendations for the Mobile
Ecosystem. In the very next month,
the Federal Trade Commission
issued its own report, Mobile
Privacy Disclosures; Building Trust
Through Transparency.
Finally, Congress is talking about
the country’s concerns over privacy
and is consid...
iOS App Rejected = App Developer Dejected: App Store Guidelines Updated
Saturday, August 17, 2013 by Stuart Parkerson
The word is out, Apple has updated its App Store Guidelines. We counted and the word “rejected” appears 88 times, whew!
Actually, its not as bad as it seems, most of the information seems pretty straightforward, however one item did catch my eye: “Apps that duplicate Apps already in the App Store may be rejected, particularly if there are many of them, such as fart, b...
App Developer News Weekly Roundup for The Week of August 9th, 2013
Saturday, August 10, 2013 by Richard Harris
From the Editors DeskHello everyone! It's been a great week in mobile and we've got lots to share with you! The August issue is here officially so be sure and check it out if you haven't already. We have been getting alot of great feedback from the developer community and it's much appreciated! Top Stories for the week of 8/10/2013Easier to Do: Find Bigfo...
App Developers and COPPA: A Review of the FTC’s Six Step Compliance Plan
Wednesday, August 7, 2013 by Richard Harris
On July 1, 2013, the FTC’s Child Online Privacy Protection Policy (COPPA) went into affect, changing forever the landscape for app developers whose apps have users 13 and under.The FTC stance seems to be that they will rigorously enforce the act, which means that app developers with users in the US need to ensure they are in compliance, if COPPA applies to their app.&nb...
FTC releases privacy policy for mobile devices
Monday, February 4, 2013 by Richard Harris
The US FTC has issued a non-binding set of guidelines (here) for mobile privacy. That means they aren't policing them "yet" but based on these recommendations you might want to start being more pro-active with your app privacy policies.Mobile computing is growing so fast that the FTC is afraid US consumers might become the victims of overlooked policies, and u...
FTC released amendments to COPPA
Wednesday, December 19, 2012 by Richard Harris
The Federal Trade Commission adopted final amendments to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule that strengthen kids’ privacy protections and give parents greater control over the personal information that websites and online services may collect from children under 13. The FTC initiated a review in 2010 to ensure that the COPPA Rule keeps up with evolving t...
FTC new rules coming today
Wednesday, December 19, 2012 by Richard Harris
It's been a long time coming for mobile developers, but today the FTC is set to release its new rules on child privacy as it relates to mobile apps.This could be detrimental for many developers with children's apps published in the marketplaces because depending on the restrictions, it could prohibit them from even allowing children to play against each other anonymousl...
Apps could be regulated in the future
Monday, December 17, 2012 by Richard Harris
Because of a few bad seeds the entire basket might be thrown out! I'm talking about developers that aren't playing by the rules when it comes to privacy and marketing tactics within their apps, and because of it, the FTC could be at the center of some regulatory restrictions on what app developers can do in the future if we don't get everyone to clean up their act. ...
FTC complaint causes app developer to temporarily remove apps
Wednesday, December 12, 2012 by Richard Harris
If you don't think mobile privacy is becoming a really big deal then maybe this story will catch your attention.Mobbles, is a geolocation game in which children collect and care for virtual pets. The game also collected some personal information including email addresses without parental consent, and evidently with no privacy policy in place.The Center for Digital ...
FTC comes down hard on developers and markets
Monday, December 10, 2012 by Richard Harris
I can't say that I blame em - but they sure gave just about anyone in the mobile developer world a rattle today with harsh words over kids privacy when it comes to mobile apps.In a new 2012 survey that compares to last years it shows little has been done to protect the privacy of children while using apps found on mobile devices.The site inside social activity from gami...
