Summary:
Facebook's acquisition of Tel-Aviv based startup Onavo in 2013 lead to criticisms of the security app being used to track its rivals through usage data. The security feature called 'Protect' came under criticism for essentially acting like spyware. While the new feature may lull the user into a false sense of security, it is actually a VPN service designed and powered by Onavo, to route your web browsing through its servers to collect and analyse data.
Allegations:
- In 2018, criticism against Onavo's Facebook acquisition began when the social network began to advertise the Onavo Protect VPN within its main app on iOS devices in the United States. Media outlets viewed the app to be essentially spyware, and said that the data it collected had been used to influence acquisitions and other decisions regarding Facebook products and its competitors.
- Apple asked Facebook to pull off its Onavo VPN app from its app store saying it violated the new App Store rules that prevented apps from harvesting data to build advertising or contact databases on users.
- Facebook's "Project Atlas"–publicly called Facebook Research–which began in 2016 faced criticism and was discontinued in the wake of a January 2019 report by TechCrunch, which alleged that Facebook bypassed the App Store by using an Apple enterprise program for apps used internally by a company's employees. The project was also criticised by US Senators Mark Warner, Richard Blumenthal, and Ed Markey for targeting teenagers leading to the need to sponsor legislation to regulate market research programmes.
- On January 30, 2019, Apple temporarily revoked Facebook's Enterprise Developer Program certificates for one day, which caused all of the company's internal iOS apps to become inoperable. Apple stated that "Facebook has been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear breach of their agreement with Apple," and that the certificates were revoked "to protect our users and their data."
Defence:
- Facebook claimed that the data being collected by Onavo Protect was not done surreptitiously. According to it, Onavo Protect was explicit about the information it was collecting and how it was being used, and that apps had incorporated market research services like this for years.
- After discussions with Apple, Facebook agreed to voluntarily remove Onavo Protect from the iOS App Store. It was subsequently removed from the Google Play store in the wake of the criticism over its 'Facebook Research' project.
- Facebook is now focusing on paid market research programmes, where the participants will know exactly what kind of data they're sharing with the company.