Author Topic: Popular VPN And Ad-Blocking Apps Are Secretly Harvesting User Data  (Read 713 times)

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Offline PeteS in CA

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https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/vpn-and-ad-blocking-apps-sensor-tower

Popular VPN And Ad-Blocking Apps Are Secretly Harvesting User Data
Craig Silverman
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on March 9, 2020, at 4:05 p.m. ET
Quote
Sensor Tower, a popular analytics platform for tech developers and investors, has been secretly collecting data from millions of people who have installed popular VPN and ad-blocking apps for Android and iOS, a BuzzFeed News investigation has found. These apps, which don’t disclose their connection to the company or reveal that they feed user data to Sensor Tower’s products, have more than 35 million downloads.

Since 2015, Sensor Tower has owned at least 20 Android and iOS apps. Four of these — Free and Unlimited VPN, Luna VPN, Mobile Data, and Adblock Focus — were recently available in the Google Play store. Adblock Focus and Luna VPN were in Apple's App Store. Apple removed Adblock Focus and Google removed Mobile Data after being contacted by BuzzFeed News. The companies said they continue to investigate.
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Nelson said the company’s apps do not collect sensitive data or personally identifiable information and that “the vast majority of these apps listed are now defunct (inactive) and a few are in the process of sunsetting.”

In most cases, the apps are no longer available because they were removed due to policy violations. A dozen of the Sensor Tower apps were previously removed from the iOS App Store due to violations, according to an Apple spokesperson. After being contacted by BuzzFeed News, Apple removed Adblock Focus and said it is continuing to investigate Luna VPN.
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BuzzFeed News connected the apps to Sensor Tower by discovering they contain code authored by developers who work for the company. The online résumé of one Sensor Tower developer, whose GitHub username is in the code of multiple apps, said he built "Android apps to power the Sensor Tower analytics platform." The personal website of another Sensor Tower developer said he’s “Working on awesome top secret iOS Projects.”

"Trust me, we 'do not collect sensitive data or personally identifiable information,'" is less than credible when the actual source of the app is kept private.
If, as anti-Covid-vaxxers claim, https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2021/robert-f-kennedy-jr-said-the-covid-19-vaccine-is-the-deadliest-vaccine-ever-made-thats-not-true/ , https://gospelnewsnetwork.org/2021/11/23/covid-shots-are-the-deadliest-vaccines-in-medical-history/ , The Vaccine is deadly, where in the US have Pfizer and Moderna hidden the millions of bodies of those who died of "vaccine injury"? Is reality a Big Pharma Shill?

Millions now living should have died. Anti-Covid-Vaxxer ghouls hardest hit.

Offline DB

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Re: Popular VPN And Ad-Blocking Apps Are Secretly Harvesting User Data
« Reply #1 on: March 12, 2020, 10:20:34 pm »
I would guess the vast number of proxy servers are quietly run by governments around the world.

And fools use them thinking they're flying under the radar... By using it they are front and center on the radar...