Meta found a way to track iPhones — and is being sued for it – APK Games

THE apple created a feature to prevent apps from tracking users without consent. THE Goal, as you can imagine, didn’t like this one bit — it’s estimated that she lost $10 billion on it. A researcher found that the company found a way to continue tracking. Now, it’s the users who didn’t like it — and sued the company behind Facebook and Instagram.

Three Facebook and iOS users have filed two class actions against Meta in US court.

They accuse the company of circumventing the mobile system’s privacy options, and intercepting, monitoring and recording activity on third-party websites.

This would give her, according to the indictment, identifiable information, private health details, typed texts and other confidential and sensitive data.

“Using an app doesn’t give a company permission to watch which links you click,” says Adam Polk, a lawyer representing two Facebook users. He adds that the action seeks to hold the company accountable.

Meta stated that the allegations are without merit and that the company will vigorously defend itself. The company claims to respect users’ privacy choices.

The indictment comes on the heels of a discovery made by cybersecurity researcher Felix Krausewho previously worked at Google.

Krause noticed that Facebook and Instagram’s built-in browser injects code into every page loaded within it.

This may allow Meta to monitor everything users do on these sites. The researcher, however, was unable to decipher what the apps actually send to the company’s servers.

In response, Meta said it is not doing anything without users’ consent. The code would serve to aggregate user data and use it for ad targeting or metrics, but it would only do that according to what the user opted in.

Krause keep what you said: Applications inject JavaScript code into all websites rendered in the internal browser.

Facebook blames Apple for poor financial results

Much of Meta’s business involves correctly targeting ads, that is, showing the right ads to the right people. To do this, it tracks what users do, as a way of understanding their preferences and interests.

Apple, in iOS 14.5, implemented App Tracking Transparency (ATT). Since then, developers are required to ask for explicit user consent to monitor their activities in other apps. As you can imagine, most refuse this type of practice — more than 60%, according to Apple.

This is a problem for Meta, which misses a way to deliver ads accurately. The company blamed the iPhone maker for its first revenue drop in ten yearsassigning it a loss of US$ 10 billion dollars in the quarter.

With information: Ars Technica, Engadget, The Conversation.