Path Settles FTC's Charges that it Deceived Users about Collecting Personal Information | Practical Law

Path Settles FTC's Charges that it Deceived Users about Collecting Personal Information | Practical Law

The operator of the Path social networking app has agreed to settle charges with the Federal Trade Commission regarding allegations that it deceived users, including children, by collecting personal information from their mobile devices without their knowledge and consent.

Path Settles FTC's Charges that it Deceived Users about Collecting Personal Information

by PLC Intellectual Property & Technology
Published on 01 Feb 2013 • USA (National/Federal)
The operator of the Path social networking app has agreed to settle charges with the Federal Trade Commission regarding allegations that it deceived users, including children, by collecting personal information from their mobile devices without their knowledge and consent.
On February 1, 2013, the Federal Trade Commission issued a press release announcing that it has settled charges against the operators of the Path social networking app for deceiving customers by collecting users' personal information without their knowledge and consent. Path operates a social networking service that allows users to keep and share journals of their life.
In its complaint, the FTC alleged that:
  • The Path user interface failed to provide users with a meaningful choice regarding the collection of their personal information.
  • Path automatically collected and stored any available first and last names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, Facebook and Twitter usernames, and birth dates of contacts stored in users' mobile device address books.
  • Path's privacy policy deceived customers by claiming that it automatically collected only certain user information like IP address, operating system, browser type and site activity information, when in fact the app actually collected and stored personal information from the user's mobile device address book when the app was first launched and again each time the user signed back into the app.
  • Path violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) by collecting personal information from approximately 3,000 children under the age of 13 without first obtaining parental consent.
In agreeing to settle the charges, Path has agreed to:
  • Establish a comprehensive privacy program.
  • Obtain independent privacy assessments every other year for the next 20 years.
  • Pay $800,000 in civil fines for violating COPPA.
  • Refrain from making any misrepresentations about the extent to which it maintains the privacy and confidentiality of consumers' personal information.
  • Delete information it collected from children under age 13.
The Path settlement is part of the FTC's ongoing efforts to make sure companies live up to the privacy promises they make to consumers and that children's personal information is not collected or shared online without their parents' consent.