The FTC, Mobile Apps, Kids’ Privacy, Prices & Competition

by on February 16, 2012 · 3 comments

Today the Federal Trade Commission released a new report entitled, “Mobile Apps for Kids: Current Privacy Disclosures Are Disappointing,” which concludes that “confusing and hard-to-find disclosures do not give parents the control that they need in this area. The FTC argues that “parents need consistent, easily accessible, and recognizable disclosures regarding in-app purchase capabilities so that they can make informed decisions about whether to allow their children to use apps with such capabilities.”

It’s hard to be against the FTC’s “the more disclosure, the better” policy recommendation and I’m not about to come out against it here. But the question is: how much disclosure is enough? Reading through the report and seeing how hard the FTC hammers this point home makes me think the agency wants our app store checkout process to be littered with the pages of fine print disclosure policies that now accompany our credit card statements and home mortgage payments! Seriously, would that make us better off?

As a parent of two kids who both download countless apps on my Android phone, my wife’s iPhone, and our family’s Android tablet, I appreciate a certain amount of disclosure about what sort of information apps are collecting and how they are using it. I think Google’s Android marketplace strikes a nice balance here, providing us with the most crucial facts about what the application will access or share. Apple could do more on disclosure but the company also prides itself (to the dismay of some!) on its rigorous pre-screening process to make sure the apps in the App Store are safe and don’t violate certain privacy and security policies. Yet, as the FTC correctly points out, “the details of this screening process are not clear.” Of course, most Apple users simply don’t give a damn. They’re all too happy to let Apple just take care of it for them even if they’re not really sure what’s happening to their data behind the scenes. The more privacy-sensitive crowd wants greater disclosure and control, of course, and I’m sympathetic to that plea.  But again, how much disclosure is enough? Are you going to wade through pages of disclosure policies and privacy opt-ins before downloading that latest iteration of “Angry Birds” or “Cut the Rope”? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Anyway, I don’t want to dwell on that. The more interested findings in the survey relate to price and market dynamics and I am hoping people don’t ignore them. After surveying the price of kids’ apps available in the Android Market and Apple App Store, the agency found that, “While prices ranged from free to $9.99, most of the 960 app store promotion pages listed a price of $0.99 or less. Indeed, 77% of the apps in the survey listed an install price of $0.99 or less, and 48% were free.  Free apps appeared to be the most frequently downloaded.” Here’s the pricing breakdown for both Android and Apple:

Folks, these are astonishing numbers. Almost 100% of the most downloaded kids apps in the Android Market are free… as in ZERO dollars and ZERO cents! And while Apple App Store prices tend to be a bit higher, 93% of apps are $2 or less.  This is one of the great consumer success stories of our time. Consumer welfare is vastly enhanced by the presence of hundred of kids apps that serve almost every interest and desire under the sun, and all for less than what you’d pay for a cup of coffee or a gallon of gas.

But wait, there’s more!!

This incredible success story is even more remarkable because of what the FTC finds next about market structure:

Staff found that hundreds of developers were responsible for the apps in the study. Staff encountered 441 unique developers in this study, only twelve of which had apps on both platforms. Only a handful of app developers were responsible for more than 10 apps in our sample. Developers with one app in our sample were popular, accounting for about 50% of all downloads/feedback ratings, even though they were responsible for only about 30% of the apps. In contrast, those developers with more than 10 apps in our sample accounted for about 1% of the feedback ratings for Apple, (and 20% of the downloads for Android) despite accounting for about 20% of all of the apps in the survey. This finding illustrates the broad and diverse nature of the mobile app marketplace.

“Broad and diverse marketplace,” you say?  That might be the understatement of the year!  I challenge you to find another part of not just our online ecosystem but indeed our entire economy that is this broad, diverse, innovate, competitive, and inexpensive.  I’m not sure that such a radically atomistic, mom-and-pop marketplace of entrepreneurs can last forever, but let’s pause and appreciate the fact that it does exist today.

Now, here’s the really interesting part of this story: This is generally what the world of kids’ online services looked like back in the late 1990s as well. It was incredibly diverse with lots of small mom-and-pop sites catering to kids and parents, often at no charge. And then along came COPPA. [Background here for those who are not familiar.] While COPPA helped address the legitimate problems a small handful of bad apples out there at the time created, it also raised serious compliance costs for that entire sector, including the many smaller mom-and-pop sites. In a letter send to the FTC back in 2005, child safety advocate Parry Aftab claimed that, “The cost of obtaining verifiable parental consent for interactive communications is very high, estimated at more than $45 per child, and even at that price difficult to obtain.” I have no idea how accurate that number was then (I think that was way too high of an estimate), or what the compliance cost per child was in the late 1990s, but let’s be conservative and say it was much smaller, perhaps less that a few bucks per child verified under COPPA.  And let’s assume that if we extended COPPA-like regulatory requirements to app stores that there would be some compliance cost. Again, even if the compliance cost was only a buck per kid, can you see how it devastating that would be to all the small mom-and-pop app developers out there who currently only get a dollar or two for their apps (assuming they charge anything at all)? Yes, it’s true that some of them use ads to offset their costs, but those ads have to pick up the tab for all their labor and development costs.  If you add new regulatory compliance costs to the mix, those mom-and-pop developers will be hit very hard. And then we will have far fewer of them. And the ones that remain will likely charge us more than the couple of bucks we pay per app today.

Further, even if the compliance cost per child gets down to a few cents (or tens of cents) per kid for large operators, it’s probably much higher for smaller operators. In other words, most of the costs here are fixed (hiring an extra employee, having lawyers review your policy, etc.), not marginal (the cost of verifying each additional kid), so it’s really hard to say what the real costs are. And with Apple and Google also taking a cut of the apps sold in the market, you really begin to see how adding on any additional compliance costs could hit the bottom lines of smaller app developers in a big way. When margins are this thin, burdensome regulatory mandates hurt even more. And sometimes they can drive you right out of business.

Which brings us back to the FTC’s role here. It’s clear that the consumer protection side of the agency has an important role to play here when it comes to ensuring consumers are better informed about data collection practices and corresponding privacy issues. But let’s not forget that the FTC was originally created as a competition agency. It’s supposed to care about market structure, competition, and consumer welfare. So, I wonder… are the folks in the FTC’s Bureau of Economics paying any attention to what their colleague are doing here? Because if we start layering on privacy regulations, all the good intentions in the world won’t be able to hold back the likely contraction and consolidation of this vibrant industry that will take place as small mom-and-pops struggle to absorb new regulatory burdens and compliance costs.

Something to think about before regulatory intervention drives up consumers prices and drives out of the market the countless entrepreneurs that make this sector so exciting–especially for parents and kids.

  • Anonymous

    My nine-year-old has an iPod touch, and I challenge the notion that cheap and free apps represent a success. Approximately 100 percent of the available apps are moronic, and the fact that they are free makes them a more readily available nuisance. Your view is like celebrating the cheapness of colas and chips. The apps contribute to stupidity and the junk food contributes to diabetes. Some success stories. Network TV is free. Yippee!

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  • Alejandro Lagos Estevez

    During my youth I found a huge secret group in Mexico; then I knew that after the second world war, many officers of the GESTAPO SS escaped to Mexico and were hidden by powerful businessmen that put them at the forefront of Mexico ultra-right groups. They infected since millions of Mexican youth with the insane ideas of Hitler. Anyone notice the presence of this huge group, because they now attacked in secret, using a powerful weapon: total infiltration of all groups and all institutions in all countries of the world. In Mexico, they lead the death squads to kill alike to criminals and political opponents throughout Latin America. I’ve escaped several assassination attempts, but is becoming increasingly more difficult. I guess no one lives forever.

    I send a summary that I sent to some Americans; I hope that you know people that can stop or at least denounce efficiently on the internet these beasts that soon extenderan the violence beyond Latin America.

    I wish them luck.

     

    El Yunque

     

     

    What no one of the poor in Latin America knows is that there is a huge Nazi conspiracy in Latin America. Directs a group of powerful businessmen in Mexico that uses the group “El Yunque” to direct all the Nazi groups in Latin America. This control is made public through the group called “ODCA (Organization of Christian Democrats) that is responsible for all Latin American Nazi groups are coordinated to be and act according to the ideas of the YUNQUE.

     

    El Yunque is the secret police of the PAN (National Action Party) which is the party in power in Mexico.

     

    What is the purpose of the YUNQUE? They have many, but the two serve as the main group of espionage and aggression against all political opponents of the PAN and also used to attack anyone who gets in the plans of entrepreneurs related to the YUNQUE. This includes the assault on workers who demand the fair and the assault on journalists and people who are publicly opposed to the PAN. And of course, is the same case in other Latin American countries, but the benefit of entrepreneurs and local fascist political parties. The second major objective of which is to gain economic control, social, political and religious from around the world, to deliver all that power to the group of powerful businessmen who operate from the shadows of the PAN.

      To carry out its plan to dominate the world, use of university student or shipping of all types of agents to create cells in other countries (particularly in Latin America) then infiltrate and take the leadership of any political institution; religious and social system that can (and took power in Mexico) (In addition to using electronic fraud in Mexico, using the counting of votes in software created by a company which is a partner in the “president of Mexico Felipe Calderón ) We call on the YUNQUE “control from the ground. So get full control of all groups of society, which used to reach their goals and attack, undermine and crush all opposition. A very effective and tactical support with so much economic power, it is impossible to stop.

     

    In secret meetings of the anvil, the speakers insisted that they were chosen by God to lead the world, with the mission to “establish the kingdom of God on earth” and that to succeed requires the United States to conquer. (here referred to an achievement based on the infiltration of leadership positions in all social groups, religious and political leaders of the United States)

     

    I do not know what solution there is to it. They are unstoppable. But we must never surrender to them, for you, for all children whose souls are being destroyed, for the freedom we are losing our families unknowingly … The Nazis are powerful, but the peoples of Latin America are people of free spirit and creative, that find a way to save our freedom.

     

     

     

     

     

    ATTACK OF THE PAN TO THE FAMILIES

     

    El Yunque’s uniform changes with the area. Is the most widely used is: white shirt and trousers in black men and white blouse and black skirt for women. In areas heavily infested with the anvil in Guadalajara, the uniform is like the brown shirts of Hitler.

     

    The banner also changes depending on the area, ranging from the classic Nazi salute to a variation of the greeting used by ancient Roman soldiers.

     

    Flags of the YUNQUE are usually two: In the senior used the Nazi flag from Hitler and the meetings of lower-level uses the black flag with white uncírculo in the center where the svastica is replaced with a “Y” stylized .

     

    Basic YUNQUE cells are formed by about three to six people and are called “centers” center meetings are in the house of the head of school or classroom for private schools.

     

    Meetings of leaders of the anvil are made on ranches owned by key leaders of the PAN.

     

    The “retreat” for indoctrination and brainwashing in ranches are members of the PAN of minor importance.

     

    YUNQUE cells meet once a week to receive orders and deliver reports and generally relating to espionage and attack political opponents. They usually read books written by members of the YUNQUE.

     

    Everyone on the anvil as used pseudonyms and the names of saints are forbidden to ask the real name of other members of the YUNQUE.

     

    Any member of the YUNQUE questioning the acts and orders of the YUNQUE and is punished severely in case of rebellion or disobedience, is the rebel assault, beatings and some serious accidents, which seem to “accidents of fate” from other centers of YUNQUE. This in order to soften them and make them more docile.

     

    El YUNQUE recruit millions of children and adolescents in public and private schools, and the recruits who are brain washed well, send them to Catholic churches and parishes, to lead groups of “catechism” for children and are also sent to the colonies and secondary schools to form teams of informal football or basketball or karate or hiking, to gain the trust of children who later invited to join a secret group that is false and is called the anvil of the “pre”. In this study the false loyalty and fanaticism of the child. If the child seems viable, then invite him to another secret: El Yunque, where it became a recruiter, a spy who complained to his family without hesitation, that copy or steal documents from their parents and a rabid aggressor ranging from the scorn and the threat to terrorism and the selective assassination.

     

    Hence the child is given full treatment and was filled with a total hatred and evil towards anything other than the dogmas of El Yunque. To do this, children are sent to so-called “retreats” and dads happy life My son is saying this along with some very good guys! ….. Oh, if they knew with what kind of demons are dropping their children. They tell the child: If you disobey, we will not disobey us to disobey God!

     

    (Religious blackmail) So fanatical religiously to children.

     

    It is clear that the leaders of the PAN does not believe in God, but a mock practice Catholicism to use religious fanaticism as a powerful tool to control children and young people who believe in his innocence is the story that are in the name of God crimes and offenses are ordered to commit.

     

    Do not underestimate the power of religious fanaticism. A human being religious fanatic is capable of doing anything in the name of God. Remember the terrorist acts committed by the terrorist group Hezbollah, which the most common is that these people are operating with powerful explosives in the middle of crowds. How can a man be convinced that it is good to massacre women and children? Because the leaders of these groups know how to use a malicious logic and a wry sense of religion, mixed with extortion for creating a slave morality of absolute loyalty. Just prefer to recruit young people and children, because the minds of them is clean of any kind of malice, it is easy to make them fall into his frightening lies and deceptions.

     

    Understand this: most people and youth who are used to recruit children and youth in the YUNQUE were fanatical and have total faith and allegiance to the YUNQUE and it is by faith that they will not hesitate to do anything to convert your children in servants fans YUNQUE. And if you believe that killing and terrorizing serve God, then they will. And they do, from the shadows, with the full support of the power of the wealthiest businessmen in Mexico and with the support of the PAN and its political allies.

     

    This is an appalling crime. As it is possible that these Nazi beasts can, with impunity total self-owners of the children of Mexicans! What kind of people would be so suicidal and stupid to allow a group of gangsters to take control of their children? Why the leaders of these corrupt pimps hide behind secrecy and intimidation in order to indoctrinate children? That’s obvious: because they know what they do is a dreadful evil.

     

     

     

    El Yunque in the Catholic Church

     

    El Yunque has managed to enter the Catholic Church for many years. The main tactic of the YUNQUE to bring into the church is the selection of players Yunque most fanatical in the religious aspect and order them to enter the seminary with the intent to be priests and to achieve to reach senior positions in the church. All this is done with the aim of using the church to support the aims and plans of the YUNQUE. Moreover, by using occasional ceremonies in secret and priests in training camps and brainwashing leaders allows the YUNQUE to create the impression of innocence and sanctity of their activities, allowing them to earn a huge facility will of children and young Latin Americans, being very fervent in their religious aspect.

     

    Girls and young women are the ones that are more easily affected by such evil and treacherous strategy.

    Very common is that players Yunque come to the churches and parishes to volunteer to teach catechism and to lead groups in the “youth mission” They do this as explained above, to earn the trust of children and young people, to recruit in El Yunque.

     

    Not all the church is infiltrated. Proof of this was that Cardinal Adolfo Suarez Rivera, in Nuevo Leon faced leaders to demand that the PAN not to recruit children and young people in the secret police panista (El Yunque) as children and adolescents do not have enough experience to know what is right or not, and El Yunque is a very radical group, which operates in secret, will definitely not be allowed such wickedness.

     

    PAN local leaders insulted him and warned him not to get involved in policy matters. After this meeting, the cardinal was the victim of threats and was pressured by other leaders of the church in Mexico that serve the PAN.

     

    The priests linked to more YUNQUE in Mexico are:

     

    The Bishop of Leon Guanajuato, Jose Guadalupe Martin Rábago

     

    Morelia Michoacan Archbishop Alberto Suarez Inda.

     

    Texcoco Bishop Carlos Aguiar Retes

     

    The bishop of Piedras Negras Cohauila; Alonso Gerardo Garza Treviño.

     

    The Archbishop of Chihuahua, Jose Fernandez Arteaga

     

    The Archbishop of Puebla; Rosendo Huesca Pacheco.

     

    The archbishop of hermosillo sonora; José Ulises Macías Salcedo

     

    Bishop Luis Morales Reyes, San Luis Potosi

     

    Bishop Mario De Gasperín Gasperín of Querétaro.

     

    Ramon Godinez Flores of Aguascalientes.

     

    Javier Navarro Rodríguez, San Juan de los Lagos

     

    Carlos Suárez Cazares, Zamora.

     

    Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, Archbishop Primate of Mexico.

     

    Archbishop Emilio Belaunzarán Berlier, Yucatan.

     

    Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez of Guadalajara.

     

    Bishop umpteenth Cepeda of Ecatepec.

     

    Father Marcial Maciel Degollado (founder of the Legionaries of Christ)

     

     

     

    “The Legionaries of Christ religious sector are infested with other agents YUNQUE, and has about 500 priests in its ranks, in addition to some 50,000 lay members.

     

    This grouping is controlled by the YUNQUE through the “Pro”

     

                        

     

    “Children of Brazil”

     

    The “Pro” and “National Civic Action feminine” are two important groups, “mask” the YUNQUE in Mexico. These groups are the large social affairs department of the YUNQUE.

     

    These two groups are responsible for various tasks, but particularly the infiltration and control of the leadership of a huge number of religious groups.

     

    These two groups are also linked to El Yunque a secret project that Yunque is the location of girls and boys preferred genes “Aryan” characteristics or unusual aggression and fanaticism, which can be used in the creation of an army leaders within the YUNQUE.

     

    When the boy or girl in question is located, it instructs officials to deal with Yunque deprave in all respects to that person and when the pregnant young woman leaves, he is encouraged to go to certain associations that are responsible for seeking parents to the baby. Of course, these groups are controlled by Provida and the baby ends up being taken by members dl YUNQUE, which are responsible for raising him as a leader of a monstrous bigotry. These children end up in important positions within the YUNQUE and the PAN.

     

     

     

    ACTS OF TERRORISM

     

     

     

    Acts of terrorism Yunque involve players YUNQUE in massacres carried out in many parts of Mexico against groups of peasants who “hindered” to politicians and landowners of the PAN.

     

    PAN agents also were involved in the “Tlatelolco massacre” the famous October 2.

     

    Other crimes have to do with maintaining the secrecy of the YUNQUE: Many students who after some years in the YUNQUE began to discover the secrets of evil and falsehood of that group decided to leave because some people, family values are so strong, that neither the more diabolical avalanche of lies can tear down the soul. These poor people are not only courageous left the YUNQUE, but sought to denounce this group among their acquaintances, which, when discovered by the YUNQUE is the cause of death in many cases. A method used by the murderers of defectors, is the boy’s suicide: The search for a deserter is told by his friends at the YUNQUE and you insite to a meeting to have a few beers and maybe do a barbecue. Place after a neglect of the victim in a cup and after that this is unconscious, hanging by the neck in the fourth. Leaving a note on the link to suicide is very convincing and even with the false signature identical to that of the deceased.

     

    Another method of killing deserters is to invite the victim to a last excursion to a nearby hill. (In monterrey prefer to use the miter Hill for this purpose) and when they reach an enormous cliff, simply push a vacuum the victim and tell the authorities that a friend they crashed. Never fails.

     

    No case has further describe methods used for deserters, suffice it to say here that for the trap to the victim, show a really diabolical ingenuity that takes the awkwardness of the victim.

     

     

     

    In the case of attacks on political opponents of the PAN, it is common the use of threats, destruction of private property, theft and copying of documents, theft of property, harassment, beatings, murder and all sorts of acts of terrorism targeted; murders being carried out attempting to make it look like accidents and acts of drug mafiosos common diseases or natural.

     

     

     

    On the YUNQUE often biologists, chemists and doctors in charge of secret research on biological and chemical weapons. These weapons are used by very ingenious devices and tactics that allow the murderers to attack the hidden victims, the victim most often die without knowing who was murdered.

     

     

     

    I hope this information serves to warn of the dire threat posed by the YUNQUE and the PAN for all.

     

    If you do not condemn the horrific acts of the anvil and the PAN, then it will be too late to stop them.

     

     

     

    Sincerely,

     

    Alejandro García Robles

     

    Mexico. E-mail: sonidolejano@gmail.com 

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