California makes good on its mobile privacy warning

California sued Delta Airline for not displaying privacy policy on its mobile app.  Delta had 30 days to act, and  according to California Attorney General Kamala Harris they failed to act within the deadline.

When the first warning was issued against Delta, United, and Opentable mobile apps back in end of October, I looked at their iPhone apps.  Back then, none of them had the privacy notice pointer from the App Store.

When I checked the Delta app (Fly Delta) today, they fixed the privacy link on their app listing page.  No more broken link.  It was pointing to its online privacy policy page.

So I decided to download Fly Delta app and found out what triggered the lawsuit.

Mobile app developers: Fill out privacy policy URL

United, Delta, and OpenTable got a note from California Attorney General warning them that they are violating The California Online Privacy Protection Act.  According to the COPPA, any online application that collects user's personal information must conspicuously display a privacy policy.  Without compliance to the COPPA companies can face $2,500 fine for every violation.

This got me wondering how United, Delta, and OpenTable violated the COPPA.  What exactly did United, Delta, and OpenTable do or not do?