Path is billed as a social networking app that allows you to remember all of life's moments, but this is one day that the company may want to erase from its timeline.

The Federal Trade Commission and Path announced today that they reached a settlement over the company's unauthorized collection of address book information on mobile devices.

The social networking start-up must establish a comprehensive privacy program and obtain independent privacy assessments every other year for the next 20 years.

Path also has to throw a little bit of money into the federal pot. It will pay $800,000 (around £509,000 AUD$768,000) in civil penalties for not rejecting new members who were under the age of 13.

FTC, Path issue statements

Outgoing FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz made sure to highlight this settlement as a victory for privacy-threatened consumers in the United States.

"This settlement with Path shows that no matter what new technologies emerge, the agency will continue to safeguard the privacy of Americans," said the resigning chairman in a press release.

"The FTC has been vigilant in responding to a long list of threats to consumer privacy, whether it's mortgage applications thrown into open trash dumpsters, kids information culled by music fan websites, or unencrypted credit card information left vulnerable to hackers."

Path, meanwhile, chalked this up to a learning experience.

"From a developer's perspective, we understand the tendency to focus all attention on the process of building amazing new things," the company said in a blog post addressing its Children's Online Privacy Protections Act violations.

"It wasn't until we gave our account verification system a second look that we realized there was a problem. We hope our experience can help others as a reminder to be cautious and diligent."

Path's blog post, curiously, didn't comment on its harvesting of users' address book data.

More Path privacy concerns

Path may need another "cautious and diligent" reminder, as the company's iOS app can still give away a user's location information without obtaining permission.

"Path's iOS app (yes, that same Path that was caught stealing users' entire address books last February) will use the embedded EXIF tag location information from photos," discovered self-described hacker and security researcher Jeffrey Paul.

This exploit happens when iOS Camera Roll photos are geotagged to Path posts, even when Location Services are disabled for the Path application.

Paul told TechRadar that he doesn't know if the issue also affects Android users, as he doesn't use the app on devices running Google's mobile operating system.

In a response to Paul's blog post, Path Product Manager Dylan Casey said that the company was unaware of the issue and has implemented new code to ignore the EXIF tag location.

A new version of the app has been submitted to the App Store for approval, according Casey, who notes that "this only affected photos taken with the Apple Camera and imported into Path."

Proving there's nothing cooler than an HTC party, the company's CEO broke out the firm's upcoming handset, the M7, at a Taipei soiree today.

Set to debut on Feb. 19 during dual events in New York and London, the M7 is said to be HTC's new flagship phone and, by the looks of it, it's ready and raring to go.

While leaks and rumors have surrounded the M7 for weeks, Chou used a silver version of the phone to snap pictures of the crowd at the company's year-end party.

"This event today is a great opportunity for testing [the camera]," Chou, as translated by Engadget, said. "I was still testing it just now."

Happy days

HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang also took the stage to rally the crowd and oozed enthusiasm over the phone's later-this-month launch.

Aside from the fact that he was so juiced he had give the world its first look at the M7, Chou's excitement came pouring out as he led the room in spirited chants of "HTC" and "M7." You can watch Chou let it all out in the clip below:

Although we see the phone, it's only the back, leaving many hard and fast specifications for the device amorphous for now.

What we have heard is that it will house a 4.7-inch 1080p display, a 13-megapixel camera, and Android 4.2: Jelly Bean, but Chou didn't get into the nitty gritty (clearly).

TechRadar will be at both Feb. 19 events, so settle in for comprehensive coverage when the day arrives.

That's not all folks

Though there's buzz building for the phone, HTC isn't stopping with the M7, not by a long shot.

According to leaks picked up by Unwired View from @evleaks, HTC has two other phones in the works: one referred to as the M4 and the other the G2.

The M4 is described as a step under the M7, in much the same was as the One S is related but junior to the One X.

On the spec side, the M4 is said to come with a 4.3-inch, 720p display and loaded with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage and two cameras - a 13MP one mounted on the back and a 1.6MP facing front.

Its battery should be 1,700mAh while Android 4.2 Jelly Bean will course through its system. As for the processor, a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon looks to fill those duties.

As if that wasn't enough, the M4 could come preinstalled with the new Sense 5.0 we saw leaked last week while also supporting LTE.

The G2, which is not related to the company's other phone with the same retail name, looks like an entry level device.

A 3.5-inch HVGA display, 1.0GHz ARM Cortex processor, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage plus a microSD card are the major specs here. The leak also points to a 5MP rear camera and a 1,400mAh powering the Ice Cream Sandwich phone, while a 1GHz processor gives the phone some oomph.

According to the report, neither device will debut alongside the M7 nor immediately after Mobile World Congress, but rather sometime in the spring. What's more, we could see the M7 start to leave warehouses before February runs its course, though another report has the phone's release date as March 8.

Proving there's nothing cooler than an HTC party, the company's CEO broke out the firm's upcoming handset, the M7, at a Taipei soiree today.

Set to debut on Feb. 19 during dual events in New York and London, the M7 is said to be HTC's new flagship phone and, by the looks of it, it's ready and raring to go.

While leaks and rumors have surrounded the M7 for weeks, Chou used a silver version of the phone to snap pictures of the crowd at the company's year-end party.

"This event today is a great opportunity for testing [the camera]," Chou, as translated by Engadget, said. "I was still testing it just now."

Happy days

HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang also took the stage to rally the crowd and oozed enthusiasm over the phone's later-this-month launch.

Aside from the fact that he was so juiced he had give the world its first look at the M7, Chou's excitement came pouring out as he led the room in spirited chants of "HTC" and "M7." You can watch Chou let it all out in the clip below:

Although we see the phone, it's only the back, leaving many hard and fast specifications for the device amorphous for now.

What we have heard is that it will house a 4.7-inch 1080p display, a 13-megapixel camera, and Android 4.2: Jelly Bean, but Chou didn't get into the nitty gritty (clearly).

TechRadar will be at both Feb. 19 events, so settle in for comprehensive coverage when the day arrives.

That's not all folks

Though there's buzz building for the phone, HTC isn't stopping with the M7, not by a long shot.

According to leaks picked up by Unwired View from @evleaks, HTC has two other phones in the works: one referred to as the M4 and the other the G2.

The M4 is described as a step under the M7, in much the same was as the One S is related but junior to the One X.

On the spec side, the M4 is said to come with a 4.3-inch, 720p display and loaded with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage and two cameras - a 13MP one mounted on the back and a 1.6MP facing front.

Its battery should be 1,700mAh while Android 4.2 Jelly Bean will course through its system. As for the processor, a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon looks to fill those duties.

As if that wasn't enough, the M4 could come preinstalled with the new Sense 5.0 we saw leaked last week while also supporting LTE.

The G2, which is not related to the company's other phone with the same retail name, looks like an entry level device.

A 3.5-inch HVGA display, 1.0GHz ARM Cortex processor, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage plus a microSD card are the major specs here. The leak also points to a 5MP rear camera and a 1,400mAh powering the Ice Cream Sandwich phone, while a 1GHz processor gives the phone some oomph.

According to the report, neither device will debut alongside the M7 nor immediately after Mobile World Congress, but rather sometime in the spring. What's more, we could see the M7 start to leave warehouses before February runs its course, though another report has the phone's release date as March 8.