LOS ANGELES (AP) — The owner of The Weather Channel mobile app denies any impropriety with sharing location data collected from users.
IBM Corp. issued a statement Friday in response to a lawsuit by the Los Angeles city attorney. Prosecutors claim app users have been misled to think the data is only used for personalized weather information but it is actually sold to third parties.
IBM says there has always been transparency about use of location data and it will be vigorously defended.
The app is part of The Weather Company digital assets that IBM acquired for $2 billion in 2015. The Weather Channel seen on TV was not acquired by IBM and is owned by a different company.
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Los Angeles prosecutors say they're suing operators of The Weather Channel mobile app to stop it from tracking the whereabouts of app users and selling the data to third parties.
City Attorney Michael Feuer said Friday that users of the popular app are misled to think their location data will only be used for personalized forecasts and alerts.
Feuer says the app's operators intentionally obscured its motives in a lengthy privacy policy that got four-fifths of users to agree to share geolocation data.
The lawsuit comes as companies such as Facebook and Google are under fire for sharing users' information.
Feuer says The Weather Channel app operators sold data to at least a dozen websites for targeted ads.
A company representative says it's "always been transparent with use of location data" and will vigorously defend the "fully appropriate" disclosures.
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These two items have been clarified to show that the lawsuit is against the operator of The Weather Channel mobile app and not The Weather Channel.
