By building privacy into your products from the beginning and giving your users the information and tools to protect and control their own personal information, you not only help avoid consequences ranging from scathing media coverage to class action lawsuits, you also make users feel truly invested in your product and build invaluable trust and loyalty.

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The key to developing outstanding privacy practices is to proactively identify and address potential privacy risks before they happen.
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MAKE YOUR PRIVACY PRACTICES STAND OUT

Apple Pushes Back Against Push Notification Demands

Apple revised its law enforcement guidelines to require a search warrant before handing over information about its customers’ push notifications to law enforcement. This change followed a letter from Senator Ron Wyden to the Department of Justice...Read more >

Google Closes the Door on Geofence Warrants

Google announced that it would change the way it stored users’ location history generated by Google Maps, placing the information on the device rather than central servers and shortening the retention period, making it so that the company could no...Read more >

Zoom Tries to Blur its Own Background—Quietly Changes Terms of Service to Allow AI to Train on User Information

Zoom failed to provide its users control over their personal information when it quietly updated its terms of service, requiring users to sacrifice their privacy in order to fuel Zoom’s artificial intelligence program. Specifically, the new terms of...Read more >

Uh oh, Edmodo! Ed-Tech Provider to Pay $6M for COPPA Violation

Education tech tech provider Edmodo had to pay $6 million in fines in 2023 for collecting information from students without parental consent, using that information for advertising purposes, and retaining personal information longer than reasonably...Read more >

Kochava Hit by FTC Lawsuit After Selling Location Info

The FTC sued data broker Kochava in 2022 for selling geolocation data that could identify and trace people around sensitive locations, such as reproductive health clinics, places of worship, and homeless and domestic violence shelters, potentially...Read more >

No Longer A Secret: Zoom Settles with FTC

The FTC finalized a settlemen t in February with Zoom over allegations that the company “misled users by touting that it offered “end-to-end, 256-bit encryption” to secure users’ communications, when in fact it provided a lower level of security.” “...Read more >

IRS Use of Facial Recognition Tool Is Deeply Unpopular

In November 2021, the IRS launched identity verification and sign-in procedures to use online services. It signed an 86 million dollar contract with ID.me, a technology provider that has been no stranger to controversy , to verify identities. To use...Read more >

Apple Cuts Out Contact With Contacts: Smart Move for Privacy

Apple has been lauded for its privacy friendly update to the iOS App store rules to prohibit developers from building a contact database (something Path got nabbed for back in 2012), using information collected via user contacts to communicate with...Read more >

Venmo Called Out for Exposing Sensitive User Purchases

Venmo experienced a privacy emergency and onslaught of bad press when a researcher released an interactive website exposing the private details revealed by Venmo’s “public by default” setting for user payments. On their website, the researcher used...Read more >

Dating Data: Grindr’s Oversharing of Sensitive User Information

The dating app Grindr found itself embroiled in controversy after reports that the app was sharing user’s HIV status with third parties. At issue was that Grindr users may not have been adequately informed that sensitive health information was being...Read more >