Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Facebook Promotes Onavo, Its Privacy-Killing VPN

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday February 13 2018, @03:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the who-do-you-trust dept.

takyon writes:

Facebook's mobile app is promoting a VPN service from a company that it acquired in 2013. The hard-to-find privacy policy and non-disclosure of Facebook's ownership are setting off alarm bells:

Facebook is now offering some mobile app users a wireless-networking app without first disclosing that it's owned by Facebook, or that it collects information for the social networking company.

The app, Onavo Protect, provides users with a virtual private network, or VPN. Typically, a VPN cloaks the user's identity and adds other security features, making it a more secure way to get online, particularly when using public Wi-Fi networks.

Yet the Onavo app also tracks data that it shares with Facebook and others, "including the applications installed on your device, your use of those applications, the websites you visit and the amount of data you use," according to its own privacy policies.

Also at TechCrunch and Gizmodo.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Facebook Promotes Onavo, Its Privacy-Killing VPN | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 30 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @05:16PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @05:16PM (#637200)

    If you have a Facebook account, you fail.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +4  
       Insightful=1, Informative=4, Overrated=1, Total=6
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   4  

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday February 13 2018, @06:11PM (1 child)

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Tuesday February 13 2018, @06:11PM (#637210) Journal

    I don't personally use Facebook. But, I find the idea that our internet-points are so much more worthy than their internet-points to be highly annoying.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @12:44AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 14 2018, @12:44AM (#637375)

      I don't personally use Facebook. But I totally agree that, typically, dumber people use Facebook and smarter people don't.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DutchUncle on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:32PM

    by DutchUncle (5370) on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:32PM (#637236)

    Problem is, a choral group and a gaming club I belong to use it as their collective note-boards, as does a band I like; and the town posts schedules and the library calendar. It *is* annoying that their entire business model is trying to make information hard-to-get and restricted, while they vacuum up all of the information about their users that they can get.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:52PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:52PM (#637243)

    2 edgeee 4 mee