Path Data Mining Story Leads to Class Action

[IfrahLaw]

Not surprisingly, the story about Path's upload of user's address books has turned into a class action lawsuit, which was filed last week against
Path, Twitter, Apple, Facebook and several others. This comes on the tails of questions from Congress and state regulators.

Consumers and authorities are focused on data privacy, which is going to change collection and use of consumer information.

Link to article on case: Privacy suit filed against Path, Twitter, Apple, Facebook, others | InSecurity Complex - CNET News

 

[moltar]

That's pretty retarded of them. Why do they even need to send full contact data? If all they care is to associate the user with others in his address book that use this app by email, then they can simply send MD5 hash of the email and then compare it server side. Not sure if that would count as a breach though. But from the article and the court filing sounds like they are uploading the entire address book with full data.

 

[IfrahLaw]

I don't know how far the case will go -- the plaintiffs don't claim harm beyond the privacy violation. A privacy case against Apple was thrown out last year in CA because the privacy violation itself was not enough injury for the case to go forward. As far as breach is concerned -- it would depend on each company's privacy policies and whether their practices conform.

 

[IfrahLaw]

Here's an article that I just wrote on this an regulation of App Industry: App Industry Begins to Regulate Itself on Data Privacy – With Nudge From Government · FTC Beat