The Weather Channel App Settles Suit Over Selling Location Data
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:
The Weather Channel app settles suit over selling location data - 9to5Mac:
IBM and the Los Angeles city attorney's office have settled a privacy lawsuit brought after The Weather Channel app was found to be selling user location data without proper disclosure. The lawsuit was filed last year, at which point the app had 45 million active users.
[...] The dispute centers on how users were informed. iOS requires apps to use a permission request system built into iOS, and they must specify the reason they want location access. However, the text is provided by the app, and The Weather Channel text said only that it was to provide local forecasts and alerts.
[...] It made no mention of the fact that user location data would also be sold. Despite this, IBM claimed that it was 'transparent' about what it was doing with the data.
[...] The reality, however, was that this disclosure was made only within a 10,000 word privacy policy that it knew almost nobody ever reads.
Additional coverage at TheVerge,threatpost, andNBC Los Angeles.
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