Snippet: But Flashlights Need to Track ☇

Alice Truong writes for Fast Company (via John Gruber):

The Android app Brightest Flashlight has been installed between 50 million and 100 million times, averaging a 4.8 rating from more than 1 million reviews. Yet its customers might not be so happy to learn the app has been secretly recording and sharing their location and device ID information…

…”When consumers are given a real, informed choice, they can decide for themselves whether the benefit of a service is worth the information they must share to use it,” said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in a statement. “But this flashlight app left them in the dark about how their information was going to be used.”

Safe and secure indeed. I also would like to think that Jessica Rich was pleased with her pun.