The legality of collecting user information of advisory services is considered in a US court

It seems that concern about the privacy of users' information is reaching a new record. In principle, recommendatory services that advise music, books, films based on what we have already read / watched are familiar to us all. Some music services do the same, offering music that is similar to something that we have already listened to. Yes, and contextual advertising is now shown to the user for a reason, it demonstrates the most relevant advertising for this particular person. In the US, lawmakers decided to check whether it is legal to collect information about a user with some mobile applications that act in a similar way.



Now lawmakers have already issued subpoenas to managers of certain services, including the well-known Pandora service. This service, as many of us know, does not just let you listen to music, but after a certain number of listened tracks it offers to listen to something, based on the data received from users. In general, everything was fine until lawmakers decided to check which data was being collected. After all, if data on a user's location is collected and processed, or, for example, a user's mobile number, then such data, by law, cannot be used without the prior consent of the user.

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A mobile application Pandora, it seems, just the same and does not ask the user for permission (although usually the software manufacturers hang kilometer EULA sheets in front of the user, where they try to provide everything they can).



By the way, the Wall Street Journal tested 101 mobile apps, and it turned out that 56 of them transfer a unique device identifier to a third party without the user's consent. In addition, 47 applications from the tested also passed the geographical location of the phone. Five sent the user's age, gender and other personal data. In general, experts conclude that 45 out of 101 applications violate the law.



In the case of Pandora, both the iPhone and Android apps transfer user information to various ad networks. The user data includes the user's age, gender, location, device ID.



In the light of all these events, regulators decided to check not only Pandora, but other services as well, since, as we see, not only Pandora is an infringer.



Via wsj