Researchers Find Some Android Apps Still Collecting Info After Shutdown
Some MIT researchers recently did an evaluation of 36 of the more popular Android app and found that many of them are collecting user data, such as GPS, W-Fi location, browsing history, and addressbook contacts despite the fact that the user had closed out the app and moved on to other ones.
Two of the most popular apps that were found to be doing this were Rovio’s Angry Birds and the mobile messaging app WhatsApp.
The reason that the researchers focused on Android was because it’s an open platform and much easier to record the actions of applications running on it. While some might suggest that we don’t need to get all up in arms over this some privacy advocates are definitely going to be following up on this, not so much for the fact htat the data is being tracked but that the tracking continues after the user closes out of the offending app.
via TechnoBuffalo / Boston Globe
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Steven Hodson Steven has been around the tech world long enough to see most of the stuff we think of cool happen before which leads to a certain bit of cynicism that has contributed to him being known as the cranky old fart of the Internet. Besides sharing some of the goodness that he finds with you here at 42x you can also find him curating some digital goodness at Winextra (tech type stuff) and Rotten Gumdrops (for your daily dose of WTF).
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