Activity At The Federal Trade Commission

There is much going on at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)  these days, particularly in the privacy arena.  In addition to the settlements discussed below, today the White House confirmed that President Obama will nominate Edith Ramirez as Chair of the FTC, replacing outgoing Chairman Jon Leibowitz.

Path Settlement:

Path, a social networking app, agreed to settle charges that it violated children’s privacy and deceived users by collecting personal information from their mobile address books.

The FTC complaint charged Path with three counts of violating the FTC Act.  The first and second counts stem from the “Add Friends” feature provided on the app.  This feature gives users the option to add friends from their mobile address book, Facebook account or to invite them by e-mail.  In reality, if the information was available, the app always collected and stored personal information from the user’s mobile contact list, including name, address, telephone number, e-mail address