Test Shows Facebook Begins Collecting Data From Several Popular Apps Seconds After Users Start Consuming Them. Company Also Collects Data of Non-Facebook Users. (wsj.com)

Millions of smartphone users confess their most intimate secrets to apps. Unbeknown to most people, in many cases that data is being shared with someone else: Facebook. [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; here's an alternative source.] The Wall Street Journal reports: The social-media giant collects intensely personal information from many popular smartphone apps just seconds after users enter it, even if the user has no connection to Facebook, according to testing done by The Wall Street Journal. The apps often send the data without any prominent or specific disclosure, the testing showed. [...] In the case of apps, the Journal's testing showed that Facebook software collects data from many apps even if no Facebook account is used to log in and if the end user isn't a Facebook member.

In the Journal's testing, Instant Heart Rate: HR Monitor, the most popular heart-rate app on Apple's iOS, made by California-based Azumio, sent a user's heart rate to Facebook immediately after it was recorded. Flo Health's Flo Period & Ovulation Tracker, which claims 25 million active users, told Facebook when a user was having her period or informed the app of an intention to get pregnant, the tests showed. Real-estate app Realtor.com, owned by Move, a subsidiary of Wall Street Journal parent News Corp, sent the social network the location and price of listings that a user viewed, noting which ones were marked as favorites, the tests showed. None of those apps provided users any apparent way to stop that information from being sent to Facebook. Update: New York Governor Cuomo has ordered probe into Facebook access to personal data.

Comments

Re:Nice paywall

[Oswald McWeany]

Anyone got the list of apps to avoid?

Yes... all of them. Always assume everything you post to an app CAN, and PROBABLY will find it's way into the wrong hands eventually.

Non-paywalled link

[Kargan]

https://www.ft.com/content/62f...

Also, old news, this came out in December.

Just shut em down ...

[Rip!ey]

Just shut em down for fucks sake. They don't care, at all. Not one little bit.The entire concept of social contract escapes them.

I don't do social media. Not at all. And yet I can't escape them.

Re:Just shut em down ...

[zippo01]

People would scream bloody murder if you tried to shut them down. Making all this public and trying to get people off the platform is a much easier way. Facebook has huge infrastructure costs. It would take much of a lose on members (US/north america members as they are the most $$) to make them hurt. Service begins to suffer, more people live, cycle continues. The other thing that could kill them is if the advertisement bubble bursts. They get an insane amount for North America users. If that value goes down by much they would quickly have to start belt tighting.

Re:Just shut em down ...

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Do you know how many websites now REQUIRE Facebook logins?

None, so far as I'm aware, that you're required to patronize. If you don't like the tie in with FB, don't give these sites your business. They will either change their policies or wither and die.

Why is it people are so oblivious to the power they have to affect change without requiring The Almighty Hand Of Government to step in and regulate everything? Is it just lazy thinking?

Re:Just shut em down ...

[BringsApples]

If you don't do social media, then how is it that you can't escape them? I understand that you're probably referenced somewhere on FB, I know I am too (I also don't use it), but so what? If I'm not wrapped up in it, how does it affect me?

The whole thing that Facebook is doing is simply collecting money from people that want your data. These companies that want said data, have no way to confirm that it's legit. Facebook slides by, on the fact that no one knows what they have, or how they get it. If Facebook approached me and said "We suspect that a guy named Tim Kroft wants to kill you, judging by his posts. It's important that you seek protection. We can provide you with protection for a small fee." What are my choices for confirming any of that, even that Tim Kroft is a real person?

Re:Just shut em down ...

[dryeo]

Why is it people are so oblivious to the power they have to affect change without requiring The Almighty Hand Of Government to step in and regulate everything? Is it just lazy thinking?

It is due to the fact that the minority has a hard time defending their rights against the majority. It's one of the jobs of government, at least in theory.
I do my best to avoid Facebook, but due to so many people using them they are everywhere and I'd bet they have too much of my personal info even with my avoiding them.
As it gets harder to avoid them, less and less people have the capability. Takes some skill to manage scripts with things like no-script. Some ad blockers white list some sites. Keeping the hosts file up to date to block domains, currently it has 41233 lines of which only a few are comments. VPN's cost money and you still don't know which ones actually are private. Etc.

Re:Just shut em down ...

[Fly Swatter]

I dunno, there are a lot of anti-stalking laws around this country... Finding one that applies would make some lawyer very rich and famous. A few high priced civil suits should do it, no need to 'shut them down'.

Re:Just shut em down ...

[Fly Swatter]

You can't escape them because their trackers are on way too many websites. Eventually your web browser's fingerprint will get into the system as well as everything that fingerprint did, like online purchases, searches, forum participation (real forums, not social media soapboxes), websites you visit, etc. They may not initially know who that fingerprint belongs to, but cross reference it with purchases / website visits / etc and they now know who you are even if you never went on their main sites.

This is why data amalgamation is big business, and why consumers that begin to understand this are getting annoyed.

Re:You can't stop them. Everything is collected

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure Facebook is a US intelligence front company.

Re:You can't stop them. Everything is collected

[lgw]

So whaddya gonna do? You let the NSA do it, why not facebook? Just charge them a tax on it.

I'd bet they aren't geoblocking this in the EU. That's gonna sting. The GDPR has big, sharp, poisonous fangs.

Any EU Slashdotters using any of these apps? Please do make a "take" request to get everything they have on you, followed by a "sanitize" request to delete it all. We ma not see the fireworks, but they will be impressive.

For you hosts file

[Trax3001BBS]

Just read title, facebook is indiscriminate and grabs all. I just downloaded this facebook hosts file and added it to my own.
https://github.com/jmdugan/blo...

One fix for this crap,

[jenningsthecat]

would be to mandate that all connected devices have a user-configurable firewall that enjoys root permissions and is the ultimate boss of whatever data is sent or received by any app. We all know that will never happen, and we also know that the majority of users would never configure it.

But just imagine it for a moment - those of us who actually care about our privacy, (but who don't know what to do, or who get stuck with unrootable devices), would be able to force the data miners to fuck off. And a lot of formerly-clueless people who suddenly DO care about their privacy when they read news stories like this wouldn't be so helpless. They could ask their geek friends what to do and NOT hear something like "buy a new phone, root it, install this app, blah blah blah".

It's nice to dream sometimes.

Stop calling it "sharing"

[Anonymous Coward]

Please stop using the feel-good propaganda word "sharing" to describe the practice of stalking, spying, profiling, and selling personal data.

Re:Stop calling it "sharing"

[smooth wombat]

Please stop using the feel-good propaganda word "sharing" to describe the practice of stalking, spying, profiling, and selling personal data.

It's no different than when people claim they're "sharing" music and videos.

If you're not going to pay the producers for the items you're using, why should these companies not be able to use your data for free?

Re:Cool Study

[OneHundredAndTen]

Everybody did most certainly not know that apps that are not obviously affiliated with FB send users' personal data to FB, regardless whether or not you are a FB user.

Re:So basically, they're Google.

[Locke2005]

Google abandoned the "Don't Be Evil" slogan years ago... obviously. Companies must act in the fiduciary interest of shareholders... if that requires being evil, then so be it!

Re:Nice paywall

[Rick Schumann]

ALL of them, friend AC. While you're at it, get off the Smartphone Treadmill; stop paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for a silly phone that'll be obsolete in 2 years, and get the cheapest plastic dumbphone that's good at being a telephone (shouldn't cost more than $50), and be content with that, use the money you saved on something actually important. You'll also save money every month paying the price-gouging wireless companies because you won't need any 'dataplan' anymore. All in all you'll save at least $1000 the first year, and probably $300-500 every year after that, and get a fair fraction of your overall privacy back.

Re:So basically, they're Google.

[Rick Schumann]

When I refer to 'capitalism out of control' or 'capitalism gone bad', that's what I'm talking about: 'Profit above all else, fuck anyone who doesn't like it'. It's got to CHANGE.

Won't stop this

[Solandri]

The apps which got caught doing this are just the stupid ones. There's no reason for the app to send the data directly to Facebook. The Realtor.com app could send the data to Realtor.com first, then they send the data to Facebook without you ever knowing.

There are only two ways to prevent this sort of sharing with a third party. Legislation like the EU has adopted. Or reading the EULAs like a hawk and not using any app which states that they share usage info with other companies.

Re:You can't stop them. Everything is collected

[tsa]

Most civilized countries have rules governing the basic safety of appliances like cars and refrigirators and the like. They make sure the things don't catch fire for no apparent reason and the brakes work properly, for instance. These laws are there because you can't expect every citizen to know about these things. It's time there are laws installed that govern what social media can and can't do with your data, because you can't expect the people who use them to know all about what is happening to their data.

Re:You can't stop them. Everything is collected

[tsa]

FB operates within the EU so they have to comply to our laws. They can be fined just like MS and Google were.