• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, October 15, 2012

California Attorney General Kamala Harris has made clear that she wants app developers to offer privacy policies. Now she's publicly calling out companies that lack them -- and is doing so on Twitter, no less.

Harris recently issued the following tweet regarding United Airlines: "Fabulous app, @United Airlines, but where is your app’s #privacy policy?" she wrote.

The tweet includes a reference to a 2004 California law requiring companies to display links to privacy policies on their home pages. While that law predates smartphone apps, Harris has repeatedly said it applies to apps. In fact, earlier this year Harris convinced the major app marketplaces to promise that they will require apps available on their platforms to have privacy policies.

Of course, simply offering a privacy policy doesn't guarantee that consumers will be better informed about how data is collected and used. On the contrary, some research suggests that most policies are far too dense for people to decipher -- at least without spending hours reading them.

But regulators still have a good reason for wanting companies to display privacy policies -- namely, that they're legally binding. Companies that violate their policy can be targeted by regulators for engaging in deceptive practices -- as Facebook, Google and MySpace recently learned.

What's more, consumers can -- and sometimes do -- sue companies that violate their privacy policies. Web user Paloma Gaos, for one, is currently suing Google for allegedly "leaking" her name to other companies via referrer headers.

Privacy policies might not be a panacea, but it's certainly understandable why Harris is hoping to see more of them.