On several occasions, Facebook was accused of collecting its users’ data without their consent. In fact, recently, its Instagram platform was accused of using facial recognition to collect such information and store them in their database.
However, this time, Facebook is on the lawsuit-filing end as it’s accusing MobiBurn of using code to harvest information about the social network's users without permission.
Apparently, Facebook has finally put its foot down and is taking legal actions against those who abuse their platform.
What is this violation Facebook is facing? How are the users being targeted? What does Facebook have to say? Find out in this article.
MobiBurn Apps - They Definitely Don’t Come for Free
The lawsuit didn’t come out of the blue. Both Facebook and Instagram have witnessed such actions back in November 2019 and started investigating two third-party software development kits (SDKs), which were diagnosed by security experts to be collecting data without consent.
Such kits can be available free of costs to developers. However, they do come with a price - user data. In other words, this means that users can be tracked by companies they’ve never even heard of.
Based on what Facebook included in the lawsuit, the MobiBurn wasn’t transparent with the users about their true intentions.
They included a feature where users can “Log In” with their Facebook account. Once they do that, the SDK would grab a digital key, and make requests for data from the social media giant every 24 hours.
Any app built with MobiBurn’s SDK can do a lot of damage when users sign in through their Facebook account.
Once logged in, the app would siphon data such as their time zone, email addresses, gender, and, of course, their name straight from their profile.
If that’s not bad enough, Facebook also stated that the SDK would harness the device's call logs, contacts, browser type, location, as well as info about other apps installed on the device.
This is very dangerous, especially since Facebook mentioned that MobiBurn’s SDKs are embedded within more than 400 applications, including those for gaming, security, and utility.
According to Facebook’s statement:
“Facebook Inc. and Facebook Ireland sued MobiBurn, OakSmart Technologies and its founder Fatih Haltas in the High Court of Justice for failing to fully comply with our audit request after MobiBurn collected user data from Facebook and other social media companies by paying app developers to install a malicious Software Development Kit (SDK) in their apps.”
This kind of practice is pretty normal in the industry. Most companies say that there’s nothing wrong about collecting the data as all of this is stated in the privacy policy.
While that might be true, we have to state that the majority of people don’t bother reading this section, which makes us question the company’s intentions and transparency (They’re well aware that customers don’t do that).
MobiBurn Harvesting User Data - Final Words
Back in November, MobiBurn stated that: "No data from Facebook is collected, shared or monetized by MobiBurn." However, that didn’t stop Facebook from filing a lawsuit against them a couple of days ago.
You see, your online security isn’t as safe as you want it to be. In today’s internet world, dozens of online entities are after your data, even with the safest apps out there.
It’s important to know all about the threats you might face and learn how to fend them off. Knowledge is everything, and websites such as The VPN Guru provide you with comprehensive guides to help you out. Give them a quick look and keep yourself, and your data safe anytime, anywhere.