Dating and Fertility Apps Among Those Snitching To 'Out of Control' Ad Tech, Report Finds (techcrunch.com) 12
The Norwegian Consumer Council published an analysis of how popular apps are sharing user data with the behavioral ad industry. TechCrunch reports the findings: A majority of the apps that were tested for the report were found to transmit data to "unexpected third parties" -- with users not being clearly informed about who was getting their information and what they were doing with it. Most of the apps also did not provide any meaningful options or on-board settings for users to prevent or reduce the sharing of data with third parties. "The evidence keeps mounting against the commercial surveillance systems at the heart of online advertising," the Council writes, dubbing the current situation "completely out of control, harming consumers, societies, and businesses," and calling for curbs to prevalent practices in which app users' personal data is broadcast and spread "with few restraints."
In the report, app users' data is documented being shared with tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter -- which operate their own mobile ad platforms and/or other key infrastructure related to the collection and sharing of smartphone users' data for ad targeting purposes -- but also with scores of other faceless entities that the average consumer is unlikely to have heard of. [...] Among the findings are a makeup filter app sharing the precise GPS coordinates of its users; ovulation, period and mood-tracking apps sharing users' intimate personal data with Facebook and Google (among others); dating apps exchanging user data with each other, and also sharing with third parties sensitive user info like individuals' sexual preferences (and real-time device specific tells such as sensor data from the gyroscope...); and a games app for young children that was found to contain 25 embedded SDKs and which shared the Android Advertising ID of a test device with eight third parties. The 10 apps whose data flows were analyzed for the report are the dating apps Grindr, Happn, OkCupid, and Tinder; fertility/period tracker apps Clue and MyDays; makeup app Perfect365; religious app Muslim: Qibla Finder; children's app My Talking Tom 2; and the keyboard app Wave Keyboard.
In the report, app users' data is documented being shared with tech giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter -- which operate their own mobile ad platforms and/or other key infrastructure related to the collection and sharing of smartphone users' data for ad targeting purposes -- but also with scores of other faceless entities that the average consumer is unlikely to have heard of. [...] Among the findings are a makeup filter app sharing the precise GPS coordinates of its users; ovulation, period and mood-tracking apps sharing users' intimate personal data with Facebook and Google (among others); dating apps exchanging user data with each other, and also sharing with third parties sensitive user info like individuals' sexual preferences (and real-time device specific tells such as sensor data from the gyroscope...); and a games app for young children that was found to contain 25 embedded SDKs and which shared the Android Advertising ID of a test device with eight third parties. The 10 apps whose data flows were analyzed for the report are the dating apps Grindr, Happn, OkCupid, and Tinder; fertility/period tracker apps Clue and MyDays; makeup app Perfect365; religious app Muslim: Qibla Finder; children's app My Talking Tom 2; and the keyboard app Wave Keyboard.
Grindr, Happn, OkCupid, and Tinder... (Score:1)
Re:Grindr, Happn, OkCupid, and Tinder... (Score:4, Insightful)
The least of your worries is a human STI from this (Score:3)
The rest?
It's pretty much what you can expect from the system as it has been established and how your privacy and personal information protection is considered/regulated.
No WAY! (Score:4, Funny)
You mean apps specifically designed for lonely and sexually frustrated people are taking advantage of those poor tortured souls?! Say it isn't so! Who would have guessed?
oooh oooh....all of us!
Re: (Score:1)
I'm more rankled by "25 embedded SDKs" and needing 4GB of RAM for a chat UI
hello world indeed
What do you want for nothing? (Score:3)
A rubber biscuit!
But if you throw it and it don't come back, you go hungry!
Re: (Score:2)
Bow Bow Bow!
If its "free" (Score:2)
George Orwell was right (Score:3)
Unexpected Third Parties? (Score:3)
Did this guy/guys just fall off the turnip truck?
Unless the app/webpage/thing comes with meaningful $1,000,000.00 liability warranty to back a claim that the app/webpage/thing DOES NOT transmit data to third-parties, then anyone born in the last century would expect that the app/webpage/thing is transmitting data to third-parties. This goes without saying.