Welcome to What I Like to Call the Al Franken Mobile Privacy Decade

Following up on a letter to Apple’s Steve Jobs and Google’s Larry Page asking them again to require a privacy policy for the mobile apps that run on their iOS and Android operating systems.

“If the companies agree to this request, consumers who purchase apps from Apple or Google’s app stores would have a clearer understanding of what information is being collected about them and with whom it’s being shared,” Franken wrote. “Apple and Google have each said time and again that they are committed to protecting users’ privacy. This is an easy opportunity for your companies to put that commitment into action.”

In other words, if you’re willing to impose privacy limits on yourselves, you should be willing to to impose them on developers. Concede to the first and the second should follow.

“At a minimum,” Franken said, “all location-aware applications in your app stores [should] provide privacy policies that clearly specify what kind of location information is gathered from users, how that information is used, and how it is shared with third parties.”