Facebook may believe “ask for forgiveness, rather than permission” a little too far.

Zak Tyrrell
Sep 2, 2018 · 2 min read

Throughout this year, multiple media outlets reported that Facebook was implicitly supporting users to download a VPN (Virtual private network) called Onavo for “security reasons.” And again, Facebook has been caught for data mining. VPNs redirect a user’s internet log through a third-party server which blocks everyone including the user’s internet service provider from seeing what the user is doing while on the web.

However, Facebook made it difficult to know that Onavo, uses the data to track the apps that people are using on their phones. So, Onavo, in other words, is a program to see what a user is doing on their phone, when not on Facebook. Apple In defense, updated its privacy guidelines to ban apps that “collect information about which other apps are installed on a user’s device for the purposes of analytics or advertising/marketing.” Leaving some to believe that Apple did this intentionally to stop Facebook

In the end, representatives from Apple and Facebook met, and Facebook agreed to remove Onavo from the app store. However, be wary that doesn’t mean Onavo is removed from the person’s phone.

To me, this is very upsetting from a business standpoint. The data mining is not the first time this has happened, and it is clear that Facebook believes they can continuously do as they please. As a major corporation that is utilized by over a billion people globally, you would think they would be more openly transparent with their consumers.

What I thought most about while reading this, was that I will have to be a lot more skeptical of Facebook and similar large corporations that rely on user data. Especially in regards to new soft wares and policies.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2018/08/23/apple-pressures-facebook-to-remove-its-data-farming-vpn-from-the-app-store/#1cd9f64d660a

Zak Tyrrell

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I am a public relation senior at the University of Florida. I Love the ocean, traveling and listening to music.