An app removed from the App Store is still in the Play Store and can steal data
It doesn't look like Facebook's data leak controversy is ever going to have a solution that ends the problem with a happy ending. If the mega-scandal of the Cambridge Analytica consultancy is still on the rise, through which Facebook was able to alter the course of history by influencing the vote in favor of Donald Trump, now it's time to deal with Apple and a sale of personal data through an application owned by Facebook. The app is called Onavo and it has already been removed from the Appstore for violating the store's Community Guidelines.
After receiving pressure from the company located in Cupertino, Facebook would have decided to remove its VPN application from the Apple application store for, apparently, violating the privacy policy. For some time now, the App Store has reinforced the privacy section of its users, regulating and preventing applications from selling personal data of the users of said applications to third parties. In that situation, Onavo was breaking the rules and was immediately eliminated.
Onavo Protect is an application that Facebook bought from an Israeli startup back in 2013. With this application, supposedly, the user's data was free from being tracked by the web pages in which the user user entered. The user activated this application and could browse the Internet 'incognito'.But, as the Wall Street Journal revealed in a report, Facebook took advantage of and collected, for its own use, that same data that, apparently, was not disclosed to third-party websites and services. Thanks to this data collection, Facebook knew that it should buy the Facebook messaging service or the Instagram social network. Onavo does not deceive anyone, since in the terms of service it indicates that all the data collected can be shared with the affiliated company, that is, Facebook.
In February of this year, Facebook invited all users to install Onavo Protect, via a button-shaped in-app lure. And many ended up installing this application that promised data savings in browsing as well as private browsing. The worst case is that the Onavo Protect app continues to work on the Play Store without being removed.Does this mean that the iPhone user is more secure in their app store than the Android user?
Interestingly, when searching for 'Onavo Protect' in the Google Play Store, the name does not appear in the application title We have We have to go to the name of the developer, in a very small font size, to read Onavo. Instead, the app calls itself Protect Free VPN+Data Manager. An application, by the way, that more than 10 million android users have already downloaded and installed on their phones. From your expert we advise you not to download this application since your data may be exposed to the sale of third parties. As we can see, Facebook does not stop feeding its bad reputation through strategies that continue to bring out the colors, week after week.
