I Mozilla researchers have analyzed the applications on the Play Storenoting that they often “lie” about privacy conditions. So much so that researchers think that the system does not inform consumers sufficiently.
Mozilla thinks Play Store apps “lie” about privacy
The group “Privacy Not Included” di Mozilla, the company that makes the Firefox browser, they analyzed a lot of apps. And the information are false and misleading in 80% of cases. Among the applications analyzed there are apps like TikTok, Minecraft, Facebook but also Google apps like YouTube, Maps and Gmail.
The researchers report that “the system fails to help consumers make more informed choices about their privacy before buying or downloading one of the 2.7 billion apps on the store“.
Applications that have “important discrepancies” with what is reported in the privacy are 40%: among these Minecraft, Twitter and Facebook. 37.5% instead need to improvements: come YouTube, Google Maps, Gmail, WhatsApp e Instagram.
Only 15% – Candy Crush Saga, Google Play Games and Subway Surfers – have a classic”Ok“, only three in the top 20 most popular. Some applications had not filled out the privacy form such as League of Stickman Acti, Terraria and UC Browser.
The most reported problem is that they indicate of do not share user data, while they do so in their own policies: Snapchat, Twitter and TikTok do it.
For this reason, Mozilla proposes using labels instead of descriptions as is the case now. But it also suggests that users pay more attention, reading the policies of applications to know how they treat data.