California Sues Delta Air Lines Over Mobile Privacy 100
New submitter mrheckman writes "California is suing Delta Air Lines for violation of California's on-line privacy law. Delta failed to 'conspicuously post a privacy policy within their mobile app that informs users of what personally identifiable information is being collected and what will be done with it' after a 30-day notice. Delta's app collects 'substantial personally identifiable information such as a user's full name, telephone number, email address, frequent flyer account number and pin code, photographs, and geo-location.' Why is it we still can't control what permissions an app has on our phones? It's absurd and disturbing that an app for checking flights and baggage demands all of those permissions."
you read the set of permissions. (Score:5, Insightful)
You install or do not install.
Re:you read the set of permissions. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why, though? It is trivial to use (though not to install) utilities like PDroid and DroidWall to control these permissions.
Why does a modern OS not give advanced users basic control of the sandbox settings? Is it to protect the user's interests, or is it to deliberately limit the user's control of their own device?
Re:you read the set of permissions. (Score:5, Insightful)
You install or do not install.
You're thinking of the jungle
In a civilized society, there are laws that may actually protect consumers. This lawsuit is a demonstration of that
They should at least make it easy for you to figure out what they collect and what they may do with this information - and they have not.
Kind of silly (Score:5, Insightful)
I have this app on my iPhone. You can use it as a guest, but really its for frequent flyers that already have Delta sky miles accounts. The majority of people using this app have already provided most of the mentioned personal information, if not more because they have a SkyMiles Account and they have bought plane tickets. So this lawsuit is kind of silly in my opinion.
Re:Absurd? No, not really. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:There is one smartphone that lets you do this.. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is one area where the Blackberry OS has very soundly beaten every other mobile OS I'm aware of. Any OS even remotely considering corporate/enterprise usage really ought to have this sort of ACL for apps.
But, they don't.