KCOY Santa Maria, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo - NewsAttorney General Calls For Privacy Protection For Mobile App Users

Attorney General Calls For Privacy Protection For Mobile App Users

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif - An agreement was reached between leading app platform companies and California Attorney General Kamala Harris. The agreement will improve privacy protections for millions of users who access the Internet through apps, released the Attorney General's office.

The agreement is between Amazon, Apple, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Research In Motion. These platforms have agreed to privacy principles designed to bring the industry in line with a California law requiring mobile apps that collect personal information to have a privacy policy. The majority of mobile apps sold today do not contain a privacy policy, said Harris.

"Your personal privacy should not be the cost of using mobile apps, but all too often it is," said Attorney General Harris.

This agreement will allow consumers the opportunity to review an app's privacy policy before they download the app rather than after, and will offer consumers a consistent location for an app's privacy policy on the application-download screen, said Harris in a news release.