This morning an article was published in the SMH suggesting the Optus Festival Buddy iPhone app was opening up people to spam.  We'd like to reassure you that we care as much about your online privacy as we do the rest of your Festival experience.

Is Optus Festival Buddy a marketing vehicle?  Not really, as its primary purpose is to deliver useful information to people interested in Sydney Festival.  Is it an advertising (or spamming) vehicle - absolutely not. Optus chose to dedicate some of its marketing budget to a useful app rather than more banner ads.  I would like to see more companies do this, however misinformation which plays on people's fears does nothing to support it.

 Online Privacy is Important
 
People should absolutely be careful when giving their personal details online, but the threat is not from reputable companies who operate within Australian laws, regulations and best practice guidelines.  The problem lies with the real spammers (usually outside of the country) who are truly unscrupulous.  Our government provides some great resources to help you tell the difference.

 Some reassuring facts about Optus Festival Buddy:
 

1. No personal data is sent from the Buddy Application to Optus or its suppliers (in this case, the app developer)
2. The SMS mechanism used to make the app download more convenient does not include any opt-in to marketing lists - which means you will not receive any marketing or advertising messages
3. "Push Notification" is a technical term created by Apple as a battery saving way to send app status type messages to the iPhone.  It is not about pushing advertising messages into your phone
4. No passwords are required unless you chose to connect to social networks

• if you connect to facebook, the app does not get to see your password (this is done through a safe mechanism called facebook connect)
• if you connect to twitter, the app stores your username and password locally on your phone - where it stays securely

A call for practical T&Cs
 
When was the last time you read the T&C's in full?  They're not fun, but they are required by companies to ensure they are legally covered.  While it's not practical that organisations throw out the legal version of T&C's how about a plain english version with real life examples and maybe even pictures.

 In this instance, clause #4 (from the app) ...

 might have a plain English version like this ...

 Optus may need to update the application to add useful functionality or fix niggly little bugs.  When this happens you will receive a "Push Notification" from the App Store.  This is the normal way Apple notifies you of updates - we just need to let you know that this might be happening.

Please use our blog comments - and don't worry, if you login through twitter or facebook, we don't see or store your passwords.