Congressmen Want Apple to Answer on Address-Book Sharing

Waxman, Butterfield Question Approval Process for ‘Path' iOS App

By John Eggerton -- Multichannel News, 2/15/2012 10:43:39 AM

Washington -- Another day, another letter from Congress to an Internet company with concerns about information sharing online.

In a letter sent Wednesday, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the House Energy & Commerce Committee chairman, and Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), chairman of the House Manufacturing and Trade Subcommittee, want Apple to address reports that the Path social-networking application, a third-party app approved by Apple, collected address-book information from users of iOS devices without asking if they wanted to share that data.

They questioned the adequacy of Apple's application development and approval policies.

"This incident raises questions about whether Apple's iOS app developer policies and practices may fall short when it comes to protecting the information of iPhone users and their contacts," the congressmen said in their letter.

 After a blogger and a different iOS developer blogged about the issue, Path's CEO apologized and said that going forward, users would be required to opt in to the address-book-sharing feature.

Waxman and Butterfield's concern goes beyond Apple, however, to whether collecting address-book contacts without consent is common practice among outside companies developing apps for the iOS platform.

The congressmen have given Apple until Feb. 29 to answer several questions, including on all iOS guidelines on privacy and data security, as well as on which types of data Apple believes require affirmative consent from the user before they are transmitted.

The Waxman/Butterfield missive is just the latest in a host of letters to various companies from Congress over the past year, including Google, Facebook, and Amazon, with regard to privacy policies and information sharing.