Studying the terms and con-
ditions of apps and social
media services and issuing
reports on unwanted ads and
rights given up by the user
We use Android
user data to de-
velop and improve
services offered
accounts as a result of using a particular
app or OS. Therefore, the user might de-
cide against starting an account on this
service.
Al Marzouqi pointed out that this step
might force app and OS developers to re-
view the terms and conditions so as not
to lose more subscribers.
He continued saying that unfortunately,
many users fail to read the terms and
conditions of apps and OS considering
them to be “another” boring page set by
the developers to avoid legal issues that
may arise from the app use, but in truth,
such terms and conditions are highly im-
portant to know the user’s rights and how
the app handles their privacy.
Al Marzouqi also said that we at, TRA,
stress to users the importance of reading
the terms and conditions to ensure that
they suit their requirements, especially
that there are apps that are automatically
entitled to breach the address book and
numbers. This causes trouble for those
who do not wish to link their accounts to
their phone numbers.
Al Marzouqi indicated that there are
many services that might be very useful
but might also cause the breach of us-
ers’ privacy such as the “automatic up-
loading” feature on Google+, a service
that takes copies of images taken by the
users through their phone camera. It is
automatically activated on the app on
the smartphone. Although the app will
not publish/post the copy except through
11
March
2014
