Many free Android apps are violating Google Play Store guidelines by sharing user information?

"If your app handles personal or sensitive user data (including personally identifiable information, financial and payment information, authentication information, phonebook or contact data, microphone and camera sensor data, and sensitive device data) then your app must:
Post a privacy policy in both the designated field in the Play Developer Console and from within the Play distributed app itself.
Handle the user data securely, including transmitting it using modern cryptography (for example, over HTTPS).
The privacy policy must, together with any in-app disclosures, comprehensively disclose how your app collects, uses and shares user data, including the types of parties with whom it’s shared."-Google Play Developer Policy Center
Handle the user data securely, including transmitting it using modern cryptography (for example, over HTTPS).
The privacy policy must, together with any in-app disclosures, comprehensively disclose how your app collects, uses and shares user data, including the types of parties with whom it’s shared."-Google Play Developer Policy Center
While Carnagie Mellon cites the aforementioned stats as proof that there is some irregularities gong on among Android developers, the problem might not be as widespread as the University says it is. As it turns out, the automated system it employs might not pick up information that would refute the charge that a particular app is sharing data without a posted policy. CMU's own professor of computer science Norman Sadeh says, "Just because the automated system finds a possible privacy requirement inconsistency in an app does not mean that a problem necessarily exists." Checking irregularities by hand would result in a more accurate look at this issue, although it would be time consuming.
Part of the problem comes from developers who are naive about what is required. Take someone who develops an app that uses Google Maps, but fails to mention in the app's privacy policy that location data is being shared. Professor Sadeh points out that "Whenever you’re using Google Maps, you’re effectively sharing personal information with Google."

source: CMU via TomsHardware
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