Senator Al Franken demands Pokémon Go release privacy information; Guardian, 7/12/16

Mazin Sidahmed, Guardian; Senator Al Franken demands Pokémon Go release privacy information:

"The insanely popular Pokémon Go is collecting users’ data and sharing it with anonymous third parties, Senator Al Franken of Minnesota said in a letter to the company’s CEO on Tuesday.

The lawmaker wrote a letter to Niantic Inc’s John Hanke on Tuesday with a list of demands for further information regarding the app’s privacy settings.

“I am concerned about the extent to which Niantic may be unnecessarily collecting, using, and sharing a wide range of users’ personal information without their appropriate consent,” he wrote.

Franken, who sits on the Senate subcommittee on privacy, technology, and the law, accused the company of collecting users’ information and potentially sharing it with third-party service providers. He highlighted that most users are children and the app’s default setting is to automatically collect data, with users having to specifically “opt-out”."