Users of the social media Path should have recently found out about the controversy around the social media application that once installed, Path deliberately sends all the contents of the user’s address book directly to Path’s servers. And making things worse that they are, Path doesn’t even ask for permission regarding the transfer.
Path is a social network application that focuses on photo sharing and that it only limits users to 50 friends. It was founded by former Facebook senior platform manager Dave Morin, Macster co-creator Dustin Mierau and Napster co-founder Shawn Fanning. As exclusive as it may be, the report on Path consuming address book of users has downgraded its reputation so fast that it spread all throughout the Internet like wildfire.
The controversy came from Arun Thampi, a developer who is currently working on a Mac OS X version of the social media application. In his original post, a commenter said that Path needn’t upload the entire address book of the user just to get little information, like the user’s contacts. Instead, the commenter, Matt Gemmell said that Path could have analyzed the user’s address book locally and only uploading necessary essentials in terms of identifying friends that are on the same network. Founder Dave Morin agreed with the statement.
Chief Executive Officer Dave Morin also commented on Thampi’s post, saying that the issue was an “important conversation” and that Path took it very seriously, adding that the contact information that was uploaded to Path’s servers was used to find friends and family quickly.
Morin also reiterated that Path has an opt-in for its Android application and that users would be added to the iOS version once it is approved by Apple. A commenter quickly stepped in, saying that without an opt-in, Path is violating section 17.1 of the guidelines which states that Applications cannot transmit data about a user without obtaining the user’s prior permission. However in his defense, Morin said that Apple’s App Store guidelines “do not specifically discuss contact information”. Another commenter, this time on The Verge states that Path appears to be violating its own privacy policy which tells that applications can only collect information that users voluntarily provide and that it does not include the user’s address book.
In an update, CEO Dave Morin has already made an apology on the controversy in a blog post with a “We are sorry” title. In the post, Morin said that they made a mistake and that they are sorry for the users being uncomfortable that the application has used their phone contact. Morin also added that the company has opted to delete “the entire collection” of the gathered contact information.
The controversy has left Path with numerous negative comments on the company’s Apps Store page. Even with the apology made by Morin and the effort to delete all of its collected data, users seemed to be oblivious with this fact, giving Path a lone star out of five in reviews. No comments were made by Path’s representatives.
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Tags: app store, itunes, path, path address book issue, path for ios, path privacy violation, social media
