TikTok found to have tracked Android users’ Mac addresses until late last year

techcrunch.com

36 pointsamaajemyfren6 comments

Is this the same BS scare like "Tiktok is collecting you clipboard data on iOS" and then later it turns out a lot of high profile apps are actually doing it?

And even more important, there are plenty of analytics, crash report, tracking and I don't know what else third party services with their SDKs, usually doing the collection of data. I am juts not sure why are they never mentioned.

It would be useful to make a comparison with, say, the top 100 Android apps. This whole issues has become politisized and I don't know who to believe.

Exactly!

Real question is why does android allow access to a phones MAC address?

If you read TFA:

> TikTok appears to have exploited a known bug on Android to gather users’ MAC addresses,

There are WiFi scanning apps like this: [0], they allow you to scan nearby WiFi networks and their channels, plus do a subnet scan that gives you the Mac addresses of your phone but also other devices on your network.

[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ubnt.usurv...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com