Facebook may know more about you than you think
Reports suggest app knows what people do on their phones even if they don’t use Facebook
PHOTO: REUTERS
According to news reports, Facebook knows what millions of people do on their phones, even if they don’t actually use the social network.
Facebook is claimed to being fed detailed insights about user activities and external app usages by another firm. This helped the social networking platform to align its product growth based on such usage trends, leading to the purchase of WhatsApp and the frequent ‘Snapchat –like’ updates it sends.
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It's so precise that it allowed Facebook to keep tabs on how many Snapchat posts users sent each day, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Onavo Protect, a free VPN app, has been identified as the app that feeds user data to Facebook. The company that created Onavo was bought by Facebook in 2013. This ensures that any app or website opened on a phone with Onavo Protect will redirect traffic to Facebook’s servers. The details are then analysed by Facebook’s data analysis team, according to the report.
Onavo clearly states in its user agreement that it “analyses information about your mobile data and app use” and may share the data with “affiliates”, but it’s likely you didn’t pay much heed to the terms and conditions.
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This setup would have reportedly allowed Facebook to understand the magnitude of the effect the introduction of Instagram’s stories had on its Snapchat counterpart.
All in all, if this report is to be believed, Facebook knows what we like on our smartphones, not just in the boundaries of Facebook’s own app but potentially much more.
This article originally appeared on The Independent.
Facebook is claimed to being fed detailed insights about user activities and external app usages by another firm. This helped the social networking platform to align its product growth based on such usage trends, leading to the purchase of WhatsApp and the frequent ‘Snapchat –like’ updates it sends.
Facebook discretely fields China photo-sharing app
It's so precise that it allowed Facebook to keep tabs on how many Snapchat posts users sent each day, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Onavo Protect, a free VPN app, has been identified as the app that feeds user data to Facebook. The company that created Onavo was bought by Facebook in 2013. This ensures that any app or website opened on a phone with Onavo Protect will redirect traffic to Facebook’s servers. The details are then analysed by Facebook’s data analysis team, according to the report.
Onavo clearly states in its user agreement that it “analyses information about your mobile data and app use” and may share the data with “affiliates”, but it’s likely you didn’t pay much heed to the terms and conditions.
Facebook expands video offering to take on cable TV
This setup would have reportedly allowed Facebook to understand the magnitude of the effect the introduction of Instagram’s stories had on its Snapchat counterpart.
All in all, if this report is to be believed, Facebook knows what we like on our smartphones, not just in the boundaries of Facebook’s own app but potentially much more.
This article originally appeared on The Independent.