Facebook signs apps privacy agreement

CBS/AP

(CBS/AP) Facebook became the seventh company to agree to give people advance warning if its mobile applications pull personal information from mobile phones and tablet computers.

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The other six companies are Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Research in Motion and Hewlett-Packard.

California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris said Friday that the agreement includes Facebook's own applications, as well as those made by third parties in its recently-launched App Center.

"[W]e hope that you will consider us a signatory to the Joint Statement," Erin M. Egan, Facebook's chief privacy officer, wrote in a letter to the California attorney general's office.

The agreement requires mobile apps seeking to collect personal information to display their privacy policies before their app is installed on a device.

Facebook says it incorporated the principles of the privacy agreement when it was designing its App Center.

"We are delighted that Facebook has joined Amazon, Apple, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, and Research in Motion to provide consumers with greater control and information about how their personal data is used," Atty. Gen. Harris said in a press release. "We need to protect privacy while we foster innovation."