Under Code, Apps Would Disclose Collection of Data

A variety of groups, including app developers and consumer advocates, have agreed to test a voluntary code of conduct that would require participating app developers to offer short-form notices about whether their apps collect certain personal details from users — including health and social networking data — or share user-specific data with entities like advertising networks or consumer data resellers.

The idea is to allow people to compare the data collection practices of, say, flashlight apps and choose one that does not ingest unrelated material like their photos or contact lists. The determination that the notices are ready for testing is the outcome of yearlong negotiations — convened by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a division of the United States Commerce Department — to increase mobile app transparency for consumers. Participants included app developers, digital marketing, civil liberties, consumer and privacy groups.

On Thursday, many participants in the process voted to support a version of the code drafted by a diverse coalition including the Application Developers Alliance, an industry association, and advocacy groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the World Privacy Forum.

Although major mobile app developers like Apple and Google, which develops mobile apps for its Android platform, have not indicated whether they intend to sign on to the code of conduct, groups involved in drafting it say it is a significant advance in mobile privacy for consumers — and an unusual agreement among industry and consumer advocates.

“It’s a victory for common sense,” said Tim Sparapani, vice president for law, policy and government relations at the Application Developers Alliance, a group representing more than 100 companies and 20,000 individual developers.

But other participants in the negotiations said the notices would do little to give individual consumers more insight into or control over the vast piles of information about them that online entities collect and analyze. The notices would display only a limited list of data collection categories, they say, and would not allow consumers to opt out of data-mining or even see the records companies had amassed about them.

“A very modest slice of privacy was put forward,” for the groups to tackle, said Susan Grant, the director of consumer protection at the Consumer Federation of America, a research and advocacy organization representing about 300 consumer groups. “As time went on, that slice became more and more narrowed.”

She abstained from the vote Thursday on whether to support the code.

In the past, the app industry has been heavily criticized by some federal regulators and consumer advocates for collecting personal details from users without their knowledge or consent. A review last year by the Federal Trade Commission of 400 popular children’s apps available on Google and Apple platforms concluded that only 20 percent disclosed their data collection practices.

The code of conduct would require participating mobile app developers to show notices indicating whether their apps collected user-specific details in any of eight categories: biometrics, including fingerprints or facial recognition data; Web browsing history; logs of phone calls or texts made or received; contact list details like e-mail addresses or social network connections; financial information, like credit or banking data; health or medical data; precise location data; and stored text, video or photo files.

Signatories to the code would also have to list any of eight categories of entities with which their apps shared information; these include ad networks; mobile carriers; consumer data resellers; data analytics companies; government entities; operating systems; social networks; or other apps.

Companies that violated a promise to adhere to the code would be subject to enforcement action by the Federal Trade Commission. The code is the first step in a larger plan by the Obama administration to institute a wide-ranging consumer privacy bill of rights that would give consumers some rights to access, control and correct the personal details companies collected about them.

Last year, the White House issued a report proposing that Congress enact such a consumer privacy bill. The report said the bill would rely on codes of conduct, worked out in industry-advocacy group negotiations, to specify how different industries would adhere to those principles. The administration has yet to make public the proposed text for the legislation.

But some participants who helped develop the mobile app transparency notices said the modest gains that resulted for consumers indicated a need for stronger privacy legislation and regulation.

“If we want to move expeditiously through bigger issues, we are going to need some legislative action,” said Christopher Calabrese, legislative counsel for privacy issues at the Washington office of the A.C.L.U.

Slipstream: Legislation Would Regulate Tracking of Cellphone Users

THERE are three things that matter in consumer data collection: location, location, location.

E-ZPasses clock the routes we drive. Metro passes register the subway stations we enter. A.T.M.’s record where and when we get cash. Not to mention the credit and debit card transactions that map our trajectories in comprehensive detail — the stores, restaurants and gas stations we frequent; the hotels and health clubs we patronize.

Each of these represents a kind of knowing trade, a conscious consumer submission to surveillance for the sake of convenience.

But now legislators, regulators, advocacy groups and marketers are squaring off over newer technology: smartphones and mobile apps that can continuously record and share people’s precise movements. At issue is whether consumers are unwittingly acquiescing to pervasive tracking just for the sake of having mobile amenities like calendar, game or weather apps.

For Senator Al Franken, the Minnesota Democrat, the potential hazard is that by compiling location patterns over time, companies could create an intimate portrait of a person’s familial and professional associations, political and religious beliefs, even health status. To give consumers some say in the surveillance, Mr. Franken has been working on a locational privacy protection bill that would require entities like app developers to obtain explicit one-time consent from users before recording the locations of their mobile devices. It would prohibit stalking apps — programs that allow one person to track another person’s whereabouts surreptitiously.

The bill, approved last month by the Senate Judiciary Committee, would also require mobile services to disclose the names of the advertising networks or other third parties with which they share consumers’ locations.

“Someone who has this information doesn’t just know where you live,” Mr. Franken said during the Judiciary Committee meeting. “They know the roads you take to work, where you drop your kids off at school, the church you attend and the doctors that you visit.”

Yet many marketers say they need to know consumers’ precise locations so they can show relevant mobile ads or coupons at the very moment a person is in or near a store. Informing such users about each and every ad network or analytics company that tracks their locations could hinder that hyperlocal marketing, they say, because it could require a new consent notice to appear every time someone opened an app.

“Consumers would revolt if this was the case, and applications could be rendered useless,” said Senator Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican, who promulgated industry arguments during the committee meeting. “Worse yet, free applications that rely on advertising could be pushed by the consent requirement to become fee-based.”

Mr. Franken’s bill may seem intended simply to protect consumer privacy. But the underlying issue is the future of consumer data property rights — the question of who actually owns the information generated by a person who uses a digital device and whether using that property without explicit authorization constitutes trespassing.

In common law, a property intrusion is known as “trespass to chattels.” The Supreme Court invoked the legal concept last January in United States v. Jones, in which it ruled that the government had violated the Fourth Amendment — which protects people against unreasonable search and seizure — by placing a GPS tracking device on a suspect’s car for 28 days without getting a warrant.

Some advocacy groups view location tracking by mobile apps and ad networks as a parallel, warrantless commercial intrusion. To these groups, Mr. Franken’s bill suggests that consumers may eventually gain some rights over their own digital footprints.

“People don’t think about how they broadcast their locations all the time when they carry their phones. The law is just starting to catch up and think about how to treat this,” says Marcia Hofmann, a senior staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group based in San Francisco. “In an ideal world, users would be able to share the information they want and not share the information they don’t want and have more control over how it is used.”

Even some marketers agree.

One is Scout Advertising, a location-based mobile ad service that promises to help advertisers pinpoint the whereabouts of potential customers within 100 meters. The service, previously known as ThinkNear and recently acquired by Telenav, a personalized navigation service, works by determining a person’s location; figuring out whether that place is a home or a store, a health club or a sports stadium; analyzing weather and other local conditions; and then showing a mobile ad tailored to the situation.

Eli Portnoy, general manager of Scout Advertising, calls the technique “situational targeting.” He says Crunch, the fitness center chain, used the service to show mobile ads to people within three miles of a Crunch gym on rainy mornings. The ad said: “Seven-day pass. Run on a treadmill, not in the rain.”

When a person clicks on one of these ads, Mr. Portnoy says, a browser-based map pops up with turn-by-turn directions to the nearest location. Through GPS tracking, Scout Advertising can tell when someone starts driving and whether that person arrives at the site.

Despite the tracking, Mr. Portnoy describes his company’s mobile ads as protective of privacy because the service works only with sites or apps that obtain consent to use people’s locations. Scout Advertising, he adds, does not compile data on individuals’ whereabouts over time.

Still, he says, if Congress were to enact Mr. Franken’s location privacy bill as written, it “would be a little challenging” for the industry to carry out, because of the number and variety of companies involved in mobile marketing.

“We are in favor of more privacy,” Mr. Portnoy says, “but it has to be done within the nuances of how mobile advertising works so it can scale.”

A SPOKESMAN for Mr. Franken said the senator planned to reintroduce the bill in the new Congress. It is one of several continuing government efforts to develop some baseline consumer data rights.

“New technology may provide increased convenience or security at the expense of privacy and many people may find the trade-off worthwhile,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote last year in his opinion in the Jones case. “On the other hand,” he added, “concern about new intrusions on privacy may spur the enactment of legislation to protect against these intrusions.”

E-mail: slipstream@nytimes.com.

Internet Radio Royalty Bill Would Change Rate-Setting Standard

They are part of a federal judicial standard that is the basis of how royalty rates are set for Internet radio services like Pandora Media. For years, however, online services have complained that the standard is unfair, and results in burdensome rates that are much higher than those paid by satellite radio.

The battle flared up again on Friday with a new Congressional bill, the Internet Radio Fairness Act. Introduced in the House by Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah, and Jared Polis, Democrat of Colorado, the bill would move so-called noninteractive online radio services like Pandora and Clear Channel Communications’ iHeartRadio app from the “willing buyer, willing seller” standard to the one used to determine rates for Sirius XM Radio.

That model would let the panel of federal judges that set the rates consider evidence both on the value of the music and on the effect the royalty rate would have on the industry over all. Pandora and its supporters believe that standard would yield lower rates.

On the other side of the issue are record labels and artists, who believe that the existing rates are fair and accuse Pandora and others of wanting to deprive copyright holders of the income they deserve.

Pandora pays a fraction of a cent each time a user listens to a song, and the total must be a minimum of 25 percent of its annual revenue; last year it paid about half its revenue to labels and performers. Sirius’s current rate is 8 percent. (Both kinds of services also pay separate royalties to songwriters and publishers.)

Tim Westergren, Pandora’s founder, took to his company’s blog to say that the bill is long overdue. “The anti-Internet bias in federal law is nothing short of absurd,” he wrote.

Pandora’s position is supported by other digital services and by the National Association of Broadcasters.

Ted Kalo, executive director of the MusicFirst coalition, which represents many labels and artists, on Friday defended the current rates and said that the promised changes would unfairly benefit services like Pandora.

“There’s nothing fair about pampering Pandora, with its $1.8 billion market cap, at the expense of music creators,” Mr. Kalo said in a statement. “Going from a fair market, ‘willing buyer, willing seller,’ rate to a government-mandated subsidy will break the backs of artists, while Pandora executives pad their pockets.”

Throughout the music industry there is a wide belief that Pandora could solve its financial problems — the company, which went public a year ago, has never turned an annual profit — by simply selling more ads.

The issue is expected to be deliberated after the national elections in November, and probably into the spring.

Internet Radio Royalty Bill Would Change Rate-Setting Standard

They are part of a federal judicial standard that is the basis of how royalty rates are set for Internet radio services like Pandora Media. For years, however, online services have complained that the standard is unfair, and results in burdensome rates that are much higher than those paid by satellite radio.

The battle flared up again on Friday with a new Congressional bill, the Internet Radio Fairness Act. Introduced in the House by Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah, and Jared Polis, Democrat of Colorado, the bill would move so-called noninteractive online radio services like Pandora and Clear Channel Communications’ iHeartRadio app from the “willing buyer, willing seller” standard to the one used to determine rates for Sirius XM Radio.

That model would let the panel of federal judges that set the rates consider evidence both on the value of the music and on the effect the royalty rate would have on the industry over all. Pandora and its supporters believe that standard would yield lower rates.

On the other side of the issue are record labels and artists, who believe that the existing rates are fair and accuse Pandora and others of wanting to deprive copyright holders of the income they deserve.

Pandora pays a fraction of a cent each time a user listens to a song, and the total must be a minimum of 25 percent of its annual revenue; last year it paid about half its revenue to labels and performers. Sirius’s current rate is 8 percent. (Both kinds of services also pay separate royalties to songwriters and publishers.)

Tim Westergren, Pandora’s founder, took to his company’s blog to say that the bill is long overdue. “The anti-Internet bias in federal law is nothing short of absurd,” he wrote.

Pandora’s position is supported by other digital services and by the National Association of Broadcasters.

Ted Kalo, executive director of the MusicFirst coalition, which represents many labels and artists, on Friday defended the current rates and said that the promised changes would unfairly benefit services like Pandora.

“There’s nothing fair about pampering Pandora, with its $1.8 billion market cap, at the expense of music creators,” Mr. Kalo said in a statement. “Going from a fair market, ‘willing buyer, willing seller,’ rate to a government-mandated subsidy will break the backs of artists, while Pandora executives pad their pockets.”

Throughout the music industry there is a wide belief that Pandora could solve its financial problems — the company, which went public a year ago, has never turned an annual profit — by simply selling more ads.

The issue is expected to be deliberated after the national elections in November, and probably into the spring.

Russian Bills Would Increase Control Over Internet and Nonprofits

A series of initiatives have been introduced as President Vladimir V. Putin begins a six-year term, facing an increasingly assertive opposition. The government has imposed draconian fines for people who participate in unsanctioned protests, and legislators voted to reinstitute criminal charges for slander, rolling back a reform adopted seven months ago by Dmitri A. Medvedev, Mr. Putin’s predecessor.

The bills approved on Wednesday would allow the government to block Web sites deemed dangerous to children and require nonprofits to identify themselves as “foreign agents” if they receive financing from outside Russia and are considered by the government to be engaged in political activities.

“In just two months, we have seen a worrying shift in the legislative environment governing the enjoyment of the freedoms of assembly, association, speech and information in the Russian Federation,” said Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, in a statement released in Geneva.

The criminalization of slander, she said, could “stifle all criticism of government authorities and limit the ability of individuals to address issues of transparency, corruption and abuse of power.”

“I urge the government of the Russian Federation to avoid taking further steps backward to a more restrictive era,” she added, urging officials to soften the laws passed in recent weeks.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry responded angrily.

“We consider Ms. Pillay’s statement as unbefitting to her status as high commissioner and attempts to publicly accuse the leaders of the Russian state of failing to carry out some kinds of ‘promises’ — as outside the framework of diplomatic ethics,” the ministry said in a statement.

The law on nonprofits — which passed with a vote of 141 to 1, with one abstention — has alarmed a variety of business, charity and religious groups, uncertain whether they will have to carry the label “foreign agent,” a term that invokes cold war espionage. A lawmaker tried to calm those fears in a meeting for nonprofit leaders held by the American Chamber of Commerce, saying the law would be applied only to nonprofits attempting to “change the political system.”

“We understand that events have begun to take place at a faster rate, that the degree of tension in society is growing,” said a United Russia deputy, Aleksandr Petrov, an author of recent amendments to the bill.

“We have one goal: to try, with the help of a number of laws, to create a certain stability, to provide for the integrity of the Russian Federation,” he said. “Yes, there should be political activity, but it should not be allowed to rock the boat which is called Russia.”

Officials have repeatedly suggested that the antigovernment protests of the last six months were financed by foreign governments, and the new law requires nonprofits to deliver detailed accounting to the Ministry of Justice. Mr. Petrov said his suspicions were validated when police seized more than $1 million in cash from a safe in the home of Kseniya Sobchak, a television star and opposition leader. Ms. Sobchak has said the money was her savings.

“According to operative information, which is being discussed now, it was intended to be used for rallies,” he said. “Why must such amounts circulate on the basis of gray schemes? Why can’t this money be officially given to the opposition and show that the money has been given?”

The Internet legislation passed equally swiftly, with a vote of 147 lawmakers in favor, 3 abstaining and none opposed.

New Fez Patch Would Cost "a Ton of Money", Broken One Back Online

Fez developer Polytron is re-issuing a patch which, upon its initial release, resulted in corrupted save files for a small amount of players because a new patch would cost the independent studio "a ton of money."

"We’re bringing the first Fez patch online. It’s the same patch. We’re not going to patch the patch," reads a post on Polytron's website.

"Why not? Because Microsoft would charge us tens of thousands of dollars to re-certify the game."

Polytron points out that the save file delete bug only happens to very small amount of players; less than one per cent. The developer believes the issue mostly hits players who have completed, or almost completed the game, and reports it doesn’t happen if you start a new game.

"It’s a s**tty numbers game to be playing for sure," concedes the developer, "but as a small independent, paying so much money for patches makes NO SENSE AT ALL."

"Had Fez been released on Steam instead of XBLA, the game would have been fixed two weeks after release, at no cost to us. And if there was an issue with that patch, we could have fixed that right away too!"

Polytron believes the current patch is safe for an overwhelming majority of players.

"The patch fixes almost everything that’s been wrong with the game since launch," continues the developer. "The framerate issues, the loading, the skips, the death loops, everything! All that stuff is fixed!  And right now, nobody can get to it since the patch was pulled. For 99% of people, it makes Fez a better game."

Polytron has apologised to players who will be affected.

"Microsoft gave us a choice: either pay a ton of money to re-certify the game and issue a new patch (which for all we know could introduce new issues, for which we’d need yet another costly patch), or simply put the patch back online," writes the Polytron team. "They looked into it, and the issue happens so rarely that they still consider the patch to be 'good enough'."

"It wasn’t an easy decision, but in the end, paying such a large sum of money to jump through so many hoops just doesn’t make any sense. We already owe Microsoft a LOT of money for the privilege of being on their platform. People often mistakenly believe that we got paid by Microsoft for being exclusive to their platform. Nothing could be further from the truth. WE pay THEM."

Russian Bills Would Increase Control Over Internet and Nonprofits

A series of initiatives have been introduced as President Vladimir V. Putin begins a six-year term, facing an increasingly assertive opposition. The government has imposed draconian fines for people who participate in unsanctioned protests, and legislators voted to reinstitute criminal charges for slander, rolling back a reform adopted seven months ago by Dmitri A. Medvedev, Mr. Putin’s predecessor.

The bills approved on Wednesday would allow the government to block Web sites deemed dangerous to children and require nonprofits to identify themselves as “foreign agents” if they receive financing from outside Russia and are considered by the government to be engaged in political activities.

“In just two months, we have seen a worrying shift in the legislative environment governing the enjoyment of the freedoms of assembly, association, speech and information in the Russian Federation,” said Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, in a statement released in Geneva.

The criminalization of slander, she said, could “stifle all criticism of government authorities and limit the ability of individuals to address issues of transparency, corruption and abuse of power.”

“I urge the government of the Russian Federation to avoid taking further steps backward to a more restrictive era,” she added, urging officials to soften the laws passed in recent weeks.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry responded angrily.

“We consider Ms. Pillay’s statement as unbefitting to her status as high commissioner and attempts to publicly accuse the leaders of the Russian state of failing to carry out some kinds of ‘promises’ — as outside the framework of diplomatic ethics,” the ministry said in a statement.

The law on nonprofits — which passed with a vote of 141 to 1, with one abstention — has alarmed a variety of business, charity and religious groups, uncertain whether they will have to carry the label “foreign agent,” a term that invokes cold war espionage. A lawmaker tried to calm those fears in a meeting for nonprofit leaders held by the American Chamber of Commerce, saying the law would be applied only to nonprofits attempting to “change the political system.”

“We understand that events have begun to take place at a faster rate, that the degree of tension in society is growing,” said a United Russia deputy, Aleksandr Petrov, an author of recent amendments to the bill.

“We have one goal: to try, with the help of a number of laws, to create a certain stability, to provide for the integrity of the Russian Federation,” he said. “Yes, there should be political activity, but it should not be allowed to rock the boat which is called Russia.”

Officials have repeatedly suggested that the antigovernment protests of the last six months were financed by foreign governments, and the new law requires nonprofits to deliver detailed accounting to the Ministry of Justice. Mr. Petrov said his suspicions were validated when police seized more than $1 million in cash from a safe in the home of Kseniya Sobchak, a television star and opposition leader. Ms. Sobchak has said the money was her savings.

“According to operative information, which is being discussed now, it was intended to be used for rallies,” he said. “Why must such amounts circulate on the basis of gray schemes? Why can’t this money be officially given to the opposition and show that the money has been given?”

The Internet legislation passed equally swiftly, with a vote of 147 lawmakers in favor, 3 abstaining and none opposed.