App privacy is one of the most talked-about topics these days. There’s countless mobile applications that surreptitiously gather information about users, and this is something Congress is trying to address by collaborating with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL to develop a Do Not Track technology to hinder companies from stalking people as they leaf through the web.

While location-based applications such as Foursquare obviously need access to your location, it’s inevitable that they track you for other reasons as well. Also, the terms that come along with an app are an amalgam of jargon that one wouldn’t normally read. And if you analyze an app’s terms properly, the info they collect can be pretty alarming. A common reason for a network to collect personal info is for advertising campaigns and ads served by email providers or social networks to target you with more relevant ads.

It is with this in mind that Lookout Labs launches Ad Network Detector. This app will show you what information ad networks within the apps on your phone can access.

“Ad Network Detector puts the information that we’ve gathered about ad networks at your fingertip. This includes description of what types of ads can be displayed, as well as what personal information is collected. With easy access to this information, you’ll be able to decide whether you want to keep the app that has certain ad networks on your phone.”

Previously dubbed as Push Ad Detector, it serves to help users understand if they have an ad network on their phone that is “ that are capable of pushing out-of-app ads to the default Android notification bar, placing generically designed icons on the mobile desktop, and changing browser settings, like bookmarks or homepage.” Push Ad Detector successfully identified one of the six ad networks within an app, listed the app that had integrated the ad network and explained the private information that it could access.

Ad network will help you manage your Android device by scanning for any of 35 mainstream ad networks, including those that are capable of displaying out-of-app ads.

There’s been a string of consumer interest apps coming from Lookout Labs as of late, Another previous project is an interactive app called Mobile Threat Tracker. It allows you see threats identified by Lookout every day, turning its database into a consumer too.