Hasta La Gadget!

Congress, the White House and the FCC’s new chairman Tom Wheeler have all come out in favor of setting our phones free, but the telcos who can actually grant our handsets liberty have been slow to heed the governmental call. Because of that, Wheeler sent a veiled threat letter to the CTIA imploring it to amend its Consumer Code to include a policy ensuring our rights to get our phones unlocked once we’re off contract. Apparently, the FCC has been working with the CTIA for eight months to craft a policy that requires telcos to:

• provide a clear, concise and readily accessible policy on unlocking
• unlock mobile devices for legitimate owners of those devices once their service contract has been fulfilled
• notify customers when their devices are eligible to be unlocked and/or automatically unlock those devices for free
• unlock devices or provide an explanation of a denial of any unlock requests within two days
• unlock devices for military service men and women upon deployment

The two sides are in agreement with four of the five requirements, with the only sticking point being the bit about service providers having to notify us when our devices are eligible to be unlocked. Tom Wheeler, however, isn’t willing to see The Wireless Association’s side of things because “absent the consumer’s right to be informed about unlocking eligibility, any voluntary program would be a hollow shell.” Furthermore, he wants the new unlock policy put in place before the holidays this year, whether by the CTIA’s voluntary or the FCC’s regulatory action. Looks like we’ll be getting phone freedom for Christmas this year. We like the sound of that.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Source: FCC letter to CTIA [PDF]

A year and a half after Google introduced its new, “simpler” privacy policy, UK regulators have come to a verdict: Mountain View must now change that policy by September 20th or face the possibility of “formal enforcement action.” In a statement, the Information Commissioner’s Office said:

“We believe that the updated policy does not provide sufficient information to enable UK users of Google’s services to understand how their data will be used across all the company’s products.”

German and Italian governments have reached much the same conclusion, while France and Spain also wrote strongly-worded letters to Google last month. For its part, Google has the following response:

“Our privacy policy respects European law and allows us to create simpler, more effective services. We have engaged fully with the authorities involved throughout this process, and we’ll continue to do so going forward.”

As The Guardian points out however, Google’s statement doesn’t really explain how its privacy policy can “respect” EU law and yet be considered objectionable by five major EU governments.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Source: The Inquirer (1), The Guardian

The Guardian has obtained a series of documents which reveal that, while the NSA is expected to "minimize" collection of data suspected to belong to US citizens, any "inadvertently acquired" domestic communications can still be kept and used without a warrant.

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A new survey by Pew Research Center reveals that relying on Twitter to gauge public opinion might not be too smart: the reaction on Twitter to big national and political news seems to differ wildly from that measured by surveys. More »

The FTC has made online privacy one of its bigger missions as of late, going so far as to develop a full privacy framework that it hopes others will follow. Its counsel is extending to the mobile world with a new report full of recommendations for privacy inside apps, ads and mobile operating systems. Some of the advice includes decidedly common sense measures, such as asking for privacy permissions at a relevant moment or requiring clear disclosures as to what info leaves the device. Other tips require more exertion: the FTC would like to see dedicated privacy dashboards inside of apps, privacy policies that are visible directly from app stores and a simple Do Not Track option baked into both mobile browsers as well as ads. The suggestions aren’t binding, and they’re only partly useful when we’ve already seen features like Do Not Track find their way into newer platforms like iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8. Still, the report is potentially a worthwhile read for developers — especially those that want to stay on the FTC’s good side.

Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile

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Via: Reuters

Source: FTC