The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published a guide “to help mobile application developers observe truth in advertising and basic privacy principles when marketing new apps”.

The watchdog has been increasingly active in the app space in the last twelve months, working in areas such as child protection, privacy (and child privacy) and healthcare app marketing.

It said that its new guidelines, called Marketing Your Mobile App: Get It Right from the Start, includes “general guidelines that all app developers should consider”.

Among other things, the FTC said that developers should “tell the truth about what your app can do”; “disclose key information clearly and conspicuously”; and “build privacy considerations in from the start”.