Some studies have found that about 17.000 android apps have recorded your data for advertising purposes – without their permission. The apps are using Advertising IDs and identifiers in order to make targeted ads. Even if people have asked to forget this info, they still used it.
Google does not allow this to happen
All of these apps are violating Google’s policies, which say that they forbid user tracking and personalized ads. In theory, Google does not allow developers to connect the Advertising IDs in order to gain personal info of their users or devices. Developers are supposed to respect the wishes of their clients when they say they don’t want personalized ads.
All of these apps have been gathering online activities to those permanently connected users, their activities and their devices. Their choices are completely ignored, anyway. The thing is that the privacy mechanisms from Google, that are presented to users don’t really do anything.
Some apps are very famous, and have almost 100 million downloads. Angry Birds, My Talking Tom, Subway Surfers, and other apps, like Cheetah Keyboard, Clean Master and Audible from Amazon are on the list.
Flipboard was also supposedly on the list, but the team behind the app clarified that it’s not the case – they aren’t recording the data for ads.
Some sources have said that the privacy controls of Google only control the ad ID, but the app has collected some other persistent identifiers, together with the ad ID.
What did Google have to say about this?
As a response, Google said it would take action against some of the apps. They take this kind of issues very seriously and they always review apps – they even reviewed those on the list.
Tim M. Hill helped bring Digital-Overload from a weekly newsletter to a full-fledged news site by creating a new website and branding. He continues to assist in keeping the site responsive and well organized for the readers. As a writer to Digital-Overload, Tim mainly covers mobile news and gadgets.
