Facebook Will Shut Down Its Spyware VPN App Onavo | Hacker News Reader

Facebook Will Shut Down Its Spyware VPN App Onavo

techcrunch.com

124 pointsLogicRiver31 comments

Quotes from the article, with my emphasis in italics:

> Facebook will end its unpaid market research programs and proactively take its Onavo VPN app off the Google Play store in the wake of backlash following TechCrunch’s investigation about Onavo code being used in a Facebook Research app the sucked up data about teens.

> Facebook has also ceased to recruit new users for the Facebook Research app that still runs on Android but was forced off of iOS by Apple after we reported on how it violated Apple’s Enterprise Certificate program for employee-only apps. Existing Facebook Research app studies will continue to run, though.

> To preempt any more scandals around Onavo and the Facebook Research app and avoid Google stepping in to forcibly block the apps, Facebook is now taking Onavo off the Play Store and stopping recruitment of Research testers.

It’s a very weird use of “proactively” in this context. Facebook doesn’t seem to be acting quick either. Given that Google hasn’t yet done anything on this app on the Play Store (after all this while), that’s not a serious threat.

Facebook is just being Facebook here, doing some minimal changes to fend off criticism while it continues with its dubious practices wherever it hasn’t been caught and shamed multiple times yet.

> A Facebook spokesperson claimed in a statement that “there was nothing ‘secret’ about this”, yet it had threatened legal action if users publicly discussed the Research program.

Will wonders never cease?

The cavalier attitude says to me that this company is still a start up at heart. Early-stage companies often break a lot of rules that’s how you get big. Facebook is just still doing it.

This "it's ok to act immorally and illegally when you're a startup" attitude has to die in a fire.

Problem is governments never really acted aside from the US congressional hearings. While this is happening, Facebook's profits are up.

There's really nothing compelling Zuck and Facebook to act morally and legally.

The EU had a hearing as well. The UK had one after that and Zucc didn't show. I guess the other EU members are satisfied to know that FB doesn't give enough of a shit to actually show up when asked to show up.

It's not immoral or illegal. It's just "will convict in the court of public opinion". And as a startup you should ignore that.

Please don't attribute Facebook's lack of values to all other startups, that's a gross generalization.

A company's values reflects the values of its people, especially the founding people. Facebook's immoral behavior can be traced all the way back to its start and ultimately its maker.

Privacy is not a principle Facebook is willing to act on.

I didn’t say anything about values.

The attitude says to me "We've lied or misled the public so often, they're not even going to try to pin us down on this tiny one".

NDA's are ripe for abuse, and should be severely limited by law.

They supposedly shutdown Onavo on the iPhone.... only to just resubmit it under another name.

Accordingly I'm a bit skeptical about how much of a shutdown happens here.

I thought that fell under "unpaid market research programs" which is also shutting down.

> only to just resubmit it under another name

The facebook paid research program existed for years before the onavo shutdown

It’s a shame because I used Onavo before it was acquired and back in the days of limited mobile data plans it really reduced my bills. I didn’t trust FB so ditched it right after they got bought (feeling validated!).

However it got me thinking. What if FB and others went to the popular VPN services (like ExpressVPN) and said ‘here’s $xxx million - could you share aggregate data about visits to our competitors’. How many would go for it?

A lot of these VPN services already sell their data to 3rd parties.

Including governments- who sometimes own them via secret service blackfunds.

Postponed for PR, renamed for the internal use, soon standard for all products.

Isn't this the second time they've done this whole vpn thing? What's stopping them from rebranding it again and reselling it under a different name only to be caught again so they then say "we're gonna stop" and then rinse and repeat.

I'm disappointed that Google was fine with Onavo being in the Play Store and it took Facebook (!) itself to actually remove the app.

One should be morally good to enforce morality on others! They all exploit users' privacy with the one powerful weapon called "Settings".

I would much rather Google allow this and let users decide than the opposite.

It's trivial to install Google-unlisted software, so users can decide either way.

It isn't trivial. I don't think my parents will ever be able to install software that Google doesn't like on their phone.

Don't believe a word they are saying.

The circus with the relaunches under different names reminds of how the agencies similarly scramble to split and rename their, ahem, initiatives whenever the public gets too noisy. Or how the very same thing happens to unpopular bills.

So, what are they going to call this spyware going forward?

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