Google & Apple Face Mobile Apps Privacy Concerns
After facing its share of criticism over browser privacy, Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) as well its smartphone rival Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) may now face scrutiny over their mobile apps. [1] Both the companies are in the process of meeting with New York Senator Charles Schumer to discuss more on the privacy issues related to their mobile apps, and developers could see more monitoring and control over their apps from these tech companies, going forward.
See our full analysis for Google’s stock 
Can This Slow App Download Rates
While Apple’s 25 billionth app was recently downloaded in China, [2] Android apps are not expected to be far too behind and may possibly overtake Apple in monthly downloads by mid-2012. However, the above privacy concern can slow down the overall download rate in the market.
It was brought to light last month that the app in question – the Path journaling app – automatically uploads a user’s entire address book onto its servers without consent. The incident has obviously called into question the gaping holes that may exist in user privacy in mobile apps and much like the browser privacy fiasco for Google, this may call for some urgent patchwork from both Google and Apple to assure their users that downloading apps is still safe and secure.
We currently have a price estimate of near $627 for Google’s stock, which is roughly 5% above the current market price.
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