30 Second Video on Mobile App Privacy

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Steve Rubel

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Steve Rubel

Steve Rubel (bio) is SVP, Director of Insights for Edelman Digital, a division of Edelman - the world's largest independent PR firm.

He is charged with helping clients identify emerging technologies and trends that can be applied in marketing communications programs. Rubel also explores these topics on his site, a monthly Forbes.com column and in a bi-weekly AdAge column. He can be found on Twitter and Facebook as well.

Steve can be reached via email at steverubel@gmail.com.

Note: Everything posted on this site is Steve's personal opinion. It does not represent the views of Edelman or its clients.

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Mobile apps are fantastic but most don't tell you what data they are collecting, especially those that connect to Google. Three such apps for the iPhone are iNote, GV Mobile, and Byline. All three sync with your Google account but only Byline tells you how they store your login info. The others, as far as I can tell, don't just yet.

Ego, an app that tracks your Twitter and blog stats, takes a better approach by having a privacy policy right in the app.

As these apps grow in sophistication and sync with the web they better tell us just what they are collecting and how. Now I imagine all three of these apps mean well. But the lack of a privacy policy on their web sites seems like a mistake - one they can easily correct.

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Posted 8 months ago

4 comments

Jun 28, 2009

Colin McKay said...

Steve: thanks for pointing this out. We're really interested in how mobile apps and third party apps collect and protect your information - and whether they actually meet the commitments they have made to their users.

Colin McKay
Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada

Jun 28, 2009

Con Frantzeskos said...

Steve, I'd love to see a monthly update / chart / list of the Apps on your iPhone - maybe screengrabs of the pages they're on (so we understand the hierarchy, and also an "INs" and "OUTs" list - why you've deleted certain apps and added others?

Jun 29, 2009

OurielOhayon said...

This relates to the problem i am pointing out in my blog. Holding privacy policy and terms of services for small web apps is a pain. and someone has to simplify and streamline that. here is my post

http://ouriel.typepad.com/myblog/2009/06/free-idea-of-the-day-a-service-for-friendly-terms-and-privacy.html

Jun 29, 2009

Norbert Mayer-Wittmann said...

Good point - I've submitted this to http://30-second.com/pitches/story.php?title=youtube---mobile-app-privacy-m4v (I really like it when people create content that is succinct ... like this is! ;)

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30 Second Video on Mobile App Privacy

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