WhatApp? – Making Application Privacy More Transparent & Creating a Home Online for Privacy Experts

Determining how a web or mobile application uses personal data can be difficult or impossible even for the most educated consumers. Ryan Calo at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society is looking to change this with a novel service called WhatApp?

Supported by a grant from the Rose Foundation, WhatApp? offers an interface for privacy experts to critique the privacy policies and practices of mobile and web apps. This information is then made available to consumers so they can research how the applications they use are using their data. Developers also can submit their applications for review.

Unfortunately, the positive hype surrounding location-based cellular applications, Facebook applications, and behavioral advertising, often obfuscates important consumer data privacy issues. To be sure, these services can be tremendously valuable. However, consumers are often left in the dark about why their privacy matters and how their privacy is or is not maintained by the web and mobile applications they use. WhatApp?, if successful, should go far in fulfilling this important need.