On-Demand Firms Not Protecting User Data From Government, Says EFF in 2016 Review

Thursday blog post. In a review of 2016, she said most of the companies "aren't promising to stand by their users" when the government comes asking for user data. The group released a report in May saying most of the companies aren't meeting industry best practices for privacy and transparency (see 1605050038). She said Lyft and Uber were better than other sharing economy companies, but Gullo said Uber recently made a change in iPhone app policy that undermined user privacy (see 1612210039). "Unfortunately the Uber location tracking change is part of a disturbing trend among software makers that we saw continue in 2016 to take away, or at least limit, the ability of users to opt out of functionality that automatically gobbles up your personal information -- such as location data and browsing history." Two other examples of this, she said, are Microsoft's Windows 10 data collection (see 1608170057) and note-taking app Evernote's new privacy policy that permits some employees to read user content to improve machine learning technology. "Want to avoid the company’s prying eyes? Apparently there’s no clear way to do so if you want to continue using service," Gullo added.