Reference no: EM132175828

Path is a social networking app released in the United States and available world-wide to iOS users that describes itself as "the smart journal that helps you share life with the ones you love." The company behind it was founded in 2010 by Dave Morin, who had previously worked at Facebook. In February 2012, Path found itself at the center of a privacy controversy after a Singapore-based blogger reported that the app collected all the information in its users' "Contacts" lists, without asking the users' permission to do so. As it turned out, that information, unencrypted, was transmitted to Path's servers, where it was stored – again, unencrypted.

Initially, the founder of Path responded in comments to Arun Thampi's blog by stating, "We upload the address book to our servers in order to help the user find and connect to their friends and family on Path quickly and efficiently as well as to notify them when friends and family join Path;" he added that his company's actions were an "industry best practice." Other commenters also noted that many other apps were similarly downloading users' contact information without notifying the users or asking for permission.

Within a day of the initial report, after further negative reactions from Path users and increasing press coverage, Morin apologized for the company's practice. The Los Angeles Times reported  that "Path's chief executive and co-founder issued an apology on the San Francisco start-up's blog, and the company quickly deleted the collected user data and updated its iOS app, all while promising more transparency in how it collects and uses information from its users."

According to Arstechnica some of the criticism of Path spilled also onto Apple, whose app platform (unlike the Android one) was not designed to force app developers to notify users before accessing and downloading the users' contacts list. At the time, Apple's guidelines did instruct developers that apps could not transmit data about a user without obtaining the user's prior permission. Path appeared to have ignored this guideline yet was still available through the Apple app store.

Was it unethical for the Path developers to collect and store the app users "Contacts" information in the way they did initially before Arun Thampi raised the issue on his blog? Conduct an ethical analysis using the framework for ethical analysis (responsibility, accountability, liability, due process) and the five step process for ethical analysis. Give your most definitive answer and support it.