Twitter enhances privacy plans

Feb 18, 2012, by admin

Twitter says it will make privacy plans more open after it confessed copying whole address books from people’s smartphones and storing the information on its servers, according to reports.

Both the micro-blogging site and Apple, whose iPhone provides the Twitter application (app), have come under fire following the exposure.

Reports say that two US congressmen have written to Apple asking why the firm permits the carry out on its iPhone, as it contravenes app developer plans.

Twitter spokeswoman Carolyn Penner told the BBC and Los Angeles Times: ‘We want to be clear and translucent in our communications with users.

‘Along those lines, in our next app updates, which are coming soon, we are updating the language connected with Find Friends – to be more open.’

She also said that in place of ‘Scan your contacts’, the site will use ‘Upload your contacts’ and ‘Import your contacts’ instead, for iPhone and Android apps correspondingly.

A spokesman for Apple said: ‘Apps that gather or broadcast a user’s contact data without their earlier permission are in violation of our plans.

‘We’re working to make this even better for our customers, and as we have done with location services, any app wishing to access contact data will require open user approval in a potential software release.’

The copying of address book contacts was made apparent when an app developer in Singapore observed that his contacts had been copied from his iPhone without his permission by a social network called Path.

On his blog, Arun Thampi spoke of the extensive concentration his observation had received.

He wrote: ‘As an aside – never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this to blow up like this. I hope we can keep calm and continue to discuss this wisely.’

In an article on Gadget Lab, which is linked to on his tumblr website page, Path chief executive Dave Morin said: ‘We used the data for the sake of effortlessness.

‘Any time you build a network, you have to help users find their friends. And that entire experience is designed to suggest people who you’re close to.’

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Twitter app stores the full iPhone contact list for a period of 18 months.