Data-Gathering via Apps Presents a Gray Legal Area

BERLIN — Angry Birds, the top-selling paid mobile app for the iPhone in the United States and Europe, has been downloaded more than a billion times by devoted game players around the world, who often spend hours slinging squawking fowl at groups of egg-stealing pigs.

While regular players are familiar with the particular destructive qualities of certain of these birds, many are unaware of one facet: The game possesses a ravenous ability to collect personal information on its users.

When Jason Hong, an associate professor at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, surveyed 40 users, all but two were unaware that the game was storing their locations so that they could later be the targets of ads.

“When I am giving a talk about this, some people will pull out their smartphones while I am still speaking and erase the game,” Mr. Hong, an expert in mobile application privacy, said during an interview. “Generally, most people are simply unaware of what is going on.”

What is going on, according to experts, is that applications like Angry Birds and even more innocuous-seeming software, like that which turns your phone into a flashlight, defines words or delivers Bible quotes, are also collecting personal information, usually the user’s location and sex and the unique identification number of a smartphone. But in some cases, they cull information from contact lists and pictures from photo libraries.

As the Internet goes mobile, privacy issues surrounding phone apps have moved to the front lines of the debate over what information can be collected, when and by whom. Next year, more people around the world will gain access to the Internet through mobile phones or tablet computers than from desktop PCs, according to Gartner, the research group.

The shift has brought consumers into a gray legal area, where existing privacy protections have failed to keep up with technology. The move to mobile has set off a debate between privacy advocates and online businesses, which consider the accumulation of personal information the backbone of an ad-driven Internet.

In the United States, the data collection practices of app makers are loosely regulated, if at all; some do not even disclose what kind of data they are collecting and why. Last February, the California attorney general, Kamala D. Harris, reached an agreement with six leading operators of mobile application platforms that they would sell or distribute only mobile apps with privacy policies that consumers could review before downloading.

In announcing the voluntary pact with Amazon, Apple, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Research in Motion, whose distribution platforms make up the bulk of the American mobile app market, Ms. Harris noted that most mobile apps came without privacy policies.

“Your personal privacy should not be the cost of using mobile apps, but all too often it is,” Ms. Harris said at the time.

But simple disclosure, in itself, is often insufficient.

The makers of Angry Birds, Rovio Entertainment of Finland, discloses its information collection practices in a 3,358-word policy posted on its Web site. But as with most application makers around the world, the terms of Rovio’s warnings are more of a disclaimer than a choice.

The company advises consumers who do not want their data collected or ads directed at them to visit the Web site of its analytics firm, Flurry, and to list their details on two industry-sponsored Web sites. But Rovio notes that some companies do not honor the voluntary lists.

As a last resort, Rovio cautions those who want to avoid data collection or ads simply to move on: “If you want to be certain that no behaviorally targeted advertisements are not displayed to you, please do not use or access the services.”

Despite multiple requests by phone and Internet over five days, Rovio did not respond to questions.

Policy practices like Rovio’s often do little to inform consumers. Most people simply click through privacy permissions without reading them, said Mr. Hong, the Carnegie Mellon professor. His institute is developing a software tool called App Scanner that aims to help consumers identify what types of information an application is collecting and for what likely purpose.

In Europe, lawmakers in Brussels are planning to bring Web businesses for the first time under stringent data protection rules and to give consumers new legal powers, the better to control the information that is being collected on them.

Proposed revisions to the European Union’s General Data Protection regulation now before the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee of the European Parliament would require Web businesses to get explicit consent from consumers to collect data. A proposal would also give consumers the ability to choose what information an app can store on them without losing the ability to use the software.

But the drafting of the revisions, which are not expected until late 2013 at the earliest, has set off a concerted lobbying battle by global technology companies, most of which are based in the United States, to weaken the consent requirements, which could undermine the advertising-
financed business models that drive many free applications.

IGN Presents: The History of Halo

You know you've arrived when the universe paints a target on your back.

"Halo Killer" became part of the gaming lexicon, applied to any title that presumed to take the crown from the most successful first-person shooter of its time. Only one other franchise has arguably made that climb (that'd be Call of Duty). But nothing else can claim billions of online matches played, hundreds of accolades and awards, a highly successful multimedia empire, sales records shattered by more sales records, and a launch that single-handedly turned a two-horse console race into a three-way war. Halo was itself a game-changer, simultaneously putting new and untested hardware on the map while announcing the end of PC-shooter dominance with authority.

On top of that, it wove a tale of pure pulp sci-fi goodness. An interstellar war, Earth on the brink of defeat, the fate of the galaxy hinging on an ancient and mysterious alien artifact, and one hope for survival: a lone soldier of superhuman will and ability, fighting to turn the tide in humanity's final hour. One man, one war. And that was just for openers.

When developer Bungie Studios finally deployed Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 in late 2001, everyone felt the lightning hit. The thunder was still to come.

University of Chicago student Alex Seropian had already published Pong clone Gnop! and tank shooter Operation Desert Storm when he met fellow undergrad Jason Jones. Hungry for another project, they partnered in 1991 to create Minotaur: The Labyrinths of Crete with no solid intentions beyond getting it done and out the door.

Seven years later, as co-founders of Bungie Studios, they topped the admittedly thin list of Mac game developers with two stellar franchises to their name: real-time strategy game Myth and first-person shooter Marathon.

Marathon took the relatively young FPS genre and added physics, dual-weapon wielding, networked multiplayer, and most improbably, a plot. A nameless cyborg security officer in Mjolnir Mark IV armor found himself revived from stasis to defend the UESC Marathon from alien incursion, both assisted and hindered by increasingly unstable AIs. Fans of open-source software, Jones and Seropian capped the popular trilogy by including the Forge and Anvil, level editors that put their design tools into gamers' hands.

Soon after, Bungie partnered with Take Two Interactive, publisher of the controversial top-down actioner Grand Theft Auto. California-based Bungie West busily coded Oni, a third-person beat-'em-up with a strong Masamune Shirow flavor and definite franchise potential. Myth II was in the bag. With everything clicking into place on the business front, Jones just needed something new to sink his teeth into.

A longtime fan of old-school science fiction, Jones fired up a new project at the Chicago office. He envisioned as a sci-fi variation on Myth's real-time strategy, chronicling a desperate war on a distant planet called Solipsis. But as a game title, Solipsis just didn’t cut it, and it wasn't alone. The Crystal Palace, Hard Vacuum, Star Maker, Star Shield, and The Santa Machine all took their turn.

Not long after producing a rough build, everyone decided moving tiny army men around felt a little dull. Solipsis shifted to third-person run-'n-gun and picked up a new nickname: "Blam!" The planet became a Dyson sphere -- an artificial world built around a sun -- then a much cooler Dyson ring inspired by the novels of science fiction greats Larry Niven and Iain M. Banks. Focus centered on a beefed-up 3D build of a sketch by conceptual artist Shi Kai Wang, finally getting the thumbs-up with a drawing of an imposing cyborg soldier encased head-to-toe in pencil-gray armor.

The Master Chief set foot on Halo for the first time in 1998, armed to the teeth.

Machetes, flamethrowers, miniguns, a gravity weapon, SMGs, bazookas, pistols, rifles, and harpoon guns (to deal with sea monsters), plus a host of alien ordinance all found its way to the ring, which featured a missing segment connected by scaffolding. Choppers hovered overhead. Zodiac boats waited on the beach. Local dinosaurs and rubber-chicken-looking "blind wolves" could be subdued and used as transport like a less-than-epic World of Warcraft mount.

Many became preludes. Most were cut by the time Jones shared the stage with Apple CEO Steve Jobs at MacWorld '99 for Halo's public debut. A nine-minute trailer showed marines taking a terrific beating from Covenant Elites before the Master Chief, brandishing a power sword, stepped in. The crowd went crazy. Jobs announced Halo would release for Mac and PC same-day.

Reps from Microsoft saw the presentation as well. After collaborating on the sagging Dreamcast console, the software giant secretly began developing its own gaming system. Part of the plan involved headhunting top-notch content providers to help launch it. Midway surfaced as a likely acquisition, but in June 2000, less than three months after confirming "the Xbox project" to the press, Microsoft cut a check for $50 million and Bungie cashed it. Take Two disengaged, taking the rights to Myth and Oni with them. MacAddicts everywhere howled in betrayal. Microsoft, the enemy, now completely owned Bungie and their new shooter.

Halo wasn't just another video game anymore. It was an exclusive launch title -- the launch title -- for the Xbox, and the success of Microsoft's big black console depended on it.