Children’s app Mobbles went on the defensive Dec. 11, temporarily
taking the game offline, after learning the Center for Digital Democracy
was prepared to file a complaint against it with the Federal Trade
Commission.
The popular virtual pet app collected children’s personal information
including e-mail addresses and users’ geolocation without parental
consent, according to the complaint obtained by AdWeek. The collection
of personal data breaches the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
“We have been informed by various members of the media that Mobbles
has been or will be identified in a filing with the FTC regarding the
manner in which it collects, stores and uses consumer information,” a
statement on the Mobbles website reads.
“At this point, however, we have not received any official notice or
service of any such filing. Thus it is impossible for us to respond in
any intelligent way to allegations that we have neither seen nor
analyzed in full.”
The company also described user privacy as a serious matter.
“In case that wasn’t clear enough, we never stored any
location-related data nor do we give any data to third parties. We’ll
put a clearer privacy policy on our website later today,” the statement
says. “We are committed to ensuring the safety and protection of our
users’ privacy, and we have elected to take our app temporarily offline
in order to focus on these objectives and ways that we can continue to
improve on all fronts.”
The game, which is ranked by iTunes as one of the top 100
“entertainment” apps, could very well have been one of the hundreds of
children’s apps mentioned by the FTC in the report the agency released
Dec. 10. The report determined hundreds of apps are collecting “an
alarming amount of information” on their young users without parents’
knowledge.
The report also found only 20 percent of children’s apps disclose their data collection practices.
Of those that did offer disclosures, the links provided were often
long, technically-worded privacy policies “filled with irrelevant
information,” the report found. Other apps, it said, gave ambiguous
information about their practices.
“While we think most companies have the best intentions when it comes
protecting kids’ privacy, we haven’t seen any progress when it comes to
making sure parents have the information they need to make informed
choices about apps for their kids,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz.
“In fact, our study shows that kids’ apps siphon an alarming amount
of information from mobile devices without disclosing this fact to
parents. All of the companies in the mobile app space, especially the
gatekeepers of the app stores, need to do a better job.”
The FTC, which performed a similar study last year of both Android
and iOS apps, said there has been precious little progress toward giving
parents insight on what information is being collected from their
children, how it is being shared and who will have access to it.
The report also found many of the apps connect to social media,
sending information from mobile devices to ad networks, analytics
companies, or other third parties, without disclosing these activities
to parents.
The FTC report can be downloaded here.
Post from: SiteProNews
