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Privacy Alarm: Meta Caught De-Anonymizing Android Web Activity
The post Privacy Alarm: Meta Caught De-Anonymizing Android Web Activity appeared first on Android Headlines.
In the earlier days of the internet, the invention of cookies was a pretty cool feature. It allowed websites to remember your last visit, making it easier to pick up where you left off. However, these days, cookies have gotten a bad rep as they have been abused to track your web activity to serve up ads. For the most part, your browsing sessions are pseudo-anonymous, but a recent report has revealed that Yandex and Meta are de-anonymizing Android users’ web identifiers.
De-anonymizing Android web identifiers
According to the report, both Meta and Yandex have figured out a way to bypass built-in privacy controls, ultimately de-anonymizing Android users’ web activities. Google has built privacy features into Android, like the Android sandbox feature. This is an isolated environment that limits apps’ access to certain system resources and certain types of data.
However, the report claims that the Yandex Metrica and Meta Pixel trackers have bypassed that ingeniously. They do that by passing cookies and other identifiers from browsers such as Firefox and Chrome to native Android apps. This includes apps such as Facebook or Instagram. Then, the data is tied to the account that’s logged into those apps.
To sum it up, instead of your browsing and web activity on your browser remaining separate from your apps, Meta and Yandex have figured out a way to pass that data to their apps. This means that whatever you did in Chrome or Firefox is now linked to your Facebook, Instagram, or Yandex account.
When it was brought to their attention, both Meta and Yandex issued statements. According to Meta, “We are in discussions with Google to address a potential miscommunication regarding the application of their policies. Upon becoming aware of the concerns, we decided to pause the feature while we work with Google to resolve the issue.”
As for Yandex, the company’s statement reads, “Yandex strictly complies with data protection standards and does not de-anonymize user data. The feature in question does not collect any sensitive information and is solely intended to improve personalization within our apps.”
iOS users are safe, for now
The report suggests that these trackers target Android users exclusively. This doesn’t mean that iOS users are immune to this type of abuse. According to the report, this method is technically feasible on iOS. However, it is possible that Apple’s policies might have prevented this from happening.
The post Privacy Alarm: Meta Caught De-Anonymizing Android Web Activity appeared first on Android Headlines.
