Archive for the ‘Privacy’ Category

COPPA – IMPROVED FOR BIG COMPANIES, NOT FOR EDUCATION STARTUPS

Wednesday, December 19th, 2012

Today, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced updates to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) that addresses many of the concerns of industry.   In response to the new rules, Association for Competitive Technology Executive Director Morgan Reed made the following statement:

Final Rule Makes Important Changes for Large Companies and Platforms

“ACT and the app developer community appreciate the FTC’s efforts to address to remove ambiguity and address the concerns of large companies  and app platforms.  These changes are welcome, but the FTC did not do enough to ensure continued opportunities for educational app startups.”

“While we appreciate the efforts of Chairman Leibowitz, we are particularly concerned with his expectation that the industry will simply find a solution to the new rules.   It is akin to jumping off a cliff with the plan to build the parachute on the way down.  While that may work for big companies, small companies lack the silk and line to build that parachute before they hit the ground. “

Where will Educational Innovation Come From?

“Today, tens of thousands of independent app developers from around the country are building the future of education.  I am worried who will be left to finish that work tomorrow.

“These innovators want to provide groundbreaking educational innovations while protecting the privacy of their users, but $9,500 in legal fees represents more than a year’s worth of income for most educational apps. Moreover, even if an app does not actually require COPPA parental consent, the complexity of these rules will require most educational app developers to spend thousands of dollars in legal fees to confirm one way or another.”

Third Party Plug-ins Are Critical to Educational App Startups

“We are very concerned about the implementation of this rule, especially as it applies to the use of third party plug-in technologies that make the app ecosystem possible.  At the press conference today, the speakers spent an extraordinary amount of time demonizing these technologies and suggesting the eventual implementation of the new rules would make it difficult for educational app startups to survive.  While large, vertically-integrated firms like Google never need to use third party plug-ins, the startup community is dependent on analytics, classroom tools, and other services provided by their partners.”

The Mobile Industry is Giving Parents New Tools, Making COPPA-style Consent Less Important

“In the mobile space, companies like Apple and Microsoft are giving parents the ability to control directly app downloads, app use, and data collection and sharing regardless of decisions made by the app developer.  These tools make the need for such drastic changes to the COPPA rules completely unnecessary. This is one area where the industry needs to work directly with the FTC to educate and empower parents and developers on best practices for protecting children’s privacy.”

For more information or to setup an interview with Morgan Reed, please contact Mark Blafkin at 202.420.7483.  ACT can also provide educational app developers who can discuss their concerns in detail.

Posted in Mobile Apps, Press Release, Privacy, morgan reed | Comments Off

ACT RESPONDS TO FTC REPORT ON “MOBILE APPS FOR KIDS”

Monday, December 10th, 2012

Today, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission released a new report entitled “Mobile Apps for Kids” that highlighted a persistent privacy transparency gap on mobile apps for children. During their press conference, the FTC highlighted the Association for Competitive Technology’s education and transparency efforts as “promising.”

In response to the report, Association for Competitive Technology Executive Director Morgan Reed made the following statement:

“For the past year, we have educated hundreds of app developers around the country on best practices for privacy and developed new transparency icons. The message from the FTC today is that they appreciate our work, but we still have a lot to do.”

“The rapid growth of the mobile app industry has been fueled by startups and first time developers, some of whom are still in high school. In fact 87% of apps aredeveloped by small or micro businesses that do not have legal departments or privacy experts on staff. This report reminds us how important it is for the industry to focus attention on educating developers on privacy best practices.”

“We partnered with the world’s largest group of educational app developers, Parents with Apps, to run educational seminars and even create a new set of privacy disclosure icons for kids apps. We are continuing this work in 2013 and expanding it to include to all app developers.”

“One area of progress that the FTC missed, however, is on unique device identifiers like Apple’s UDID. Apple and the other platforms are moving developers away from using device-specific identifiers that can be unified across apps and services, and are introducing alternatives to limit tracking that are app-specific for sharing with advertisers and other 3rd parties. This will make it very difficult to combine information based on these ID’s across multiple apps or the web. Additionally, the platforms have given parents very granular tools that allow them to prevent apps from accessing certain types of data (like geolocation) regardless of app settings.”

Posted in Mobile Apps, Press Release, Privacy, morgan reed | Comments Off

FTC Taxes Apps: Privacy Changes Result in Quarter Billion Dollar Cost to Education App Developers

Wednesday, September 26th, 2012

App association, ACT, today objected to the immense cost borne by education app makers in the FTC’s proposed changes to children’s online privacy regulations (COPPA). Imposing over a quarter-billion dollars in legal expenses, the proposed rule could spell the end for education apps that have dramatically improved student performance.

“App makers understand that children’s online privacy laws must be updated to reflect the growth of new technologies and the evolution of mobile communications,” said ACT Executive Director Morgan Reed. “Unfortunately, the Commission has failed to grasp both the scope and nature of the app marketplace in its latest regulatory proposal. While perceiving the app economy to be hundreds of times smaller than it actually is, the FTC has paradoxically proposed developers collect more information, not less, to protect children’s privacy. If that wasn’t confusing enough, the FTC believes the world would be a better place if we spent $250 million more on lawyers and $250 million less on developing educational apps and content for kids.”

When the FTC measured the impact of its proposed regulation on education app developers, it estimated only 500 apps initially would be affected with an additional 125 in each successive year. This figure is grossly inaccurate considering the Apple App Store alone has 28,800 education apps. The number is significant when measuring the immense impact this proposal will have on the app industry. Because the Commission anticipates legal and technical certification for every new app would require nearly $10,000, the total costs would easily exceed $250 million. Considering that implementation is accomplished more easily and cheaply during the development stage, app companies will likely pay substantially more to apply these changes retroactively to a software product with an existing customer base on multiple platforms.

“App developers agree that the FTC should be empowered to bring enforcement action against those who violate the online privacy of children,” continued Reed. “However, the FTC’s proposed changes come at enormous cost to app makers while demonstrating a fundamental failure to understand the industry it is seeking to regulate. We support the Commission’s goal that mobile apps should provide a safe learning environment for children. We are deep troubled, however, that the FTC believes the elimination of children’s apps is the way to achieve this. The education app marketplace is a tremendous economic success story with 87% of the most successful products made by small business innovators – many of whom are parents. Requiring these developers to pay $10,000 before writing their first line of code means most of them will no longer seek to make learning tools for children. Explaining to startups that they will need a $10,000 legal investment to get started means they will pursue other opportunities than education.”

Consider who would suffers most under this regulatory regime. The educational impact of touchscreens in early learning environments has attracted widespread acclaim.

Classrooms in:

And in special education settings: Sixty Minutes: Apps for Autism.

“These proposed new fees would absolutely devastate the small business app companies whose innovative learning tools are revolutionizing early education and special education,” continued Reed. “The massive costs would utterly change the face of the ecosystem, marking the end of free kids education apps and putting these valuable resources outside the reach of middle class families.

“The FTC should weigh very carefully the chorus of criticism it has received from its latest proposal. It should make every effort to protect child safety online without taking down children’s education in the process.”

Posted in Mobile Apps, Privacy, morgan reed | Comments Off

ACT Statement on FTC Google Penalty Impact on Small Business

Thursday, August 9th, 2012

Association for Competitive Technology President Jonathan Zuck issued the following statement in response to the news that Google will pay $22.5 million in a settlement with the FTC after violating user browser preferences to prevent internet tracking. In the settlement, Google is not required to admit guilt and will pay a sum that it will earn in less than five hours.

“It’s amazing that Google is clinging to this explanation that a help page unedited from years ago is the only concern here. Google wrote a program to disable the privacy protections people used to prevent being tracked. The company actively collected information from people who didn’t want them to. It’s incredible that Google would suggest that overriding do-not-track protections was unintentional and involved no wrongdoing. It is clear that the biggest fines aren’t a deterrent if it only takes a few hours to pay them off and the perpetrator never even has to admit guilt. Commissioner Rosch was right to highlight these shortcomings of the settlement.

“The public grows ever fearful with each privacy violation that hits the headlines. If they feel nothing is happening to stop this behavior they will call on Congress to respond legislatively. The last thing small business entrepreneurs need right now are new laws and regulations that will stunt innovation and job growth. We need strong enforcement of existing laws and settlement agreements. The FTC can serve the entire online community well by providing this enforcement deterrence. The technology industry, and the public at large, would be better for it.”

Posted in Jonathan Zuck, Press Release, Privacy | Comments Off