Jay-Z, Samsung Under Investigation?
Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, the 43-year-old rap mogul, debuted his recent album release Magna Carta Holy Grail in the form of a Samsung application that is now under investigation.
Carter announced his 12th studio album during a three minute commercial that aired during halftime of the NBA Finals' Game 5. The rapper teamed up with Samsung to release it to the first one million Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy S 4 and Galaxy Note II owners who downloaded the free Magna Carta application on July 4 before it's official release on July 9.
However, in order to download his album Samsung users were forced to disclose private information such as their location, access to their phone records and social media networks.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
The Electronic Privacy Information Center advocacy group also known as EPIC recently asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the application that was a highly publicized business venture between Jay-Z and Samsung.
"Samsung failed to disclose material information about the privacy practices of the app, collected data unnecessary to the functioning of the Magna Carta App, deprived users of meaningful choice regarding the collection of their data, interfered with device functionality and failed to implement reasonable data minimization procedures," EPIC said, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The Samsung corporation defended it's application amid the public scrutiny.
"Any information obtained through the application download process was purely for customer verification purposes, app functionality purposes and for marketing communications, but only if the customer requests to receive those marketing communications," a statement from Samsung reads. "Samsung is in no way inappropriately using or selling any information obtained from users through the download process."
Jay-Z recently spoke about being disheartened by the way things turned out with his Samsung application, which did not work for some trying to get his music for free.
"That's a loss. That has to get better," Jay-Z said on New York City Radio Station Power 105.1 FM recently. "The next person now knows how to go into it better, which is cool and that's my job. I took the hit for that."
