The mobile app industry can solve kids’ privacy challenges

By Jon Potter

March 20, 2012 — (Page 1 of 2)
Jon Potter

Recent actions by the White House, the Department of Commerce, the Federal Trade Commission and the California attorney general were important reminders to app developers, app stores and mobile platforms about empowering consumers to protect their own privacy, and ensuring that parents are empowered to protect kids’ privacy. These are fair reminders and might even be considered warnings to the industry. During this effervescent period of innovation and entrepreneurial energy, sober reminders of fairness and social values can be helpful.

Many of the headlines and comments about the recent FTC report (“Mobile Apps for Kids: Current Privacy Disclosures Are Disappointing”) overstated the February 2012 report’s actual findings. Headlines about the FTC report criticized app developers for failing to protect kids’ privacy, but the report did not draw such harsh conclusions. Nor could it have; the commission staff never downloaded the apps it evaluated, never read the apps’ privacy policies, and certainly did not measure the apps’ compliance with their stated policies before issuing its report.

The mobile app industry is a significant economic driver, according to recent studies, and all signs point to years of expansion. Entrepreneurs are overflowing with ideas, and investors are funding startups that create high-paying jobs. Consumers are enjoying extraordinary benefits as new products and services offer competition, creativity and excitement.

Public policymakers should welcome this success during our time of economic retrenchment. Economist Michael Mandel, who authored one of the studies mentioned above, recently noted that a critical factor in maximizing the economic benefit of this entrepreneurial energy is “light-touch regulation.” In the area of privacy, our legislative and regulatory history demonstrates that industry standards, best practices, and light-touch regulation are the norm. A clear reading of recent government announcements supports this continuing trend.

There is an important addition to light-touch regulation in this case: rhetorical restraint. Not a muting of public discussions, and not ignoring mistakes by industry. Innovation and entrepreneurial zeal can have frustrating side effects that deserve criticism and reference as cautionary warnings. But there is no value in pointing fingers at the industry when it is the industry that holds the solution.

Related Search Term(s): mobile, privacy

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