Online companies may face action by Congress to toughen US privacy standards if they don't do a better job of protecting the privacy of mobile device users, according to Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz .

If some companies "don't wake up and do the right thing, my sense is that (the) industry is far more likely to face much more prescriptive laws down the road", Leibowitz, the outgoing FTC head, said during a conference call with reporters. "I don't think that's going to be very far down the road because privacy is the quintessential bipartisan issue in Congress."

The FTC this month released a set of mobile-privacy recommendations for application stores, such as those run by Apple Inc and Google Inc, app developers and online advertising networks. FTC staff "strongly encourages" companies to adopt the non-binding guidelines, the agency said in a news release.