By Sarah Perez
The underpinnings of how app store analytics platforms operate were exposed this week by BuzzFeed, which uncovered the network of mobile apps used by popular analytics firm Sensor Tower to amass app data. The company had operated at least 20 apps, including VPNs and ad blockers, whose main purpose was to collect app usage data from end users in order to make estimations about app trends and revenues. Unfortunately, these sorts of data collection apps are not new — nor unique to Sensor Tower’s operation.
By Eric Ferrari-Herrmann
Thanks to the basic data protection regulation, the privacy settings of major online service providers such as Google or Facebook are finally moving to the forefront. This gives us users better control or at least insight into what Big Data companies know about us and with whom they share the knowledge. Here we show you the most important privacy settings of Facebook, Google, and WhatsApp and refer you to more private alternatives to the big services.
