Apps collecting data is nothing new. Everyone has known for years that collecting and selling user data to external parties makes big money. What may come as a surprise however, is that it’s not just social media apps like Facebook. Incogni and Atlas VPN have compiled lists of the apps collecting the most data in 2023, and it’s rather alarming. What’s really bad is how some of these apps don’t even clearly ask for user consent.
Shopping apps sharing info with third parties
Apparently, some services share user data with third parties too. According to Incogni’s report, Walmart and Amazon collect the most amount of user data. In addition to identification and common info like names and birthdays, these apps also collect more sensitive data. This includes your social security number, auditory and visual data, device IDs, and financial details. Other retailers like Lowe’s, Walgreens, and Costco were not far behind.
Which apps collected the most number of data points?
eBay was another major offender, according to Atlas VPN’s research. This research studied how many “data points” a particular app collected. According to them, eBay collected 28 data points while Amazon collected 25. This does slightly conflict with Incogni’s claim of Amazon being the worst offender, however. Other popular apps that collected a large number of data points include Alibaba, Home Depot, Craigslist, Nike, and H&M.
These data points include very personal information. House addresses, phone numbers, credit scores, location data, and even texts and emails were not exempt. All of this data is sold off to third parties who use it for targeted advertising or other similar purposes. The biggest downside is that all of this data is vulnerable to one attack. These companies invest heavily in cybersecurity, but data breaches and hacks have occurred in the past.
How to limit your data collection
Many people are unaware of this, but there are means to combat this data collection. At least to an extent. For starters, the best thing users can do is simply uninstall apps they do not use. If these apps are unlikely to ever be used again, deleting the relevant account can also be a good idea. Location services can also be turned off when not in use. Many of these apps have enabled permissions that they do not actually insist upon, so those can be found and revoked as well.
Social media’s rampant data collection kind of swept all this under the rug. What shopping apps do with all this data isn’t abundantly clear right now, so it’s best to limit their prying as much as possible.
2023-12-20 15:06:28