Apps makers are sharing sensitive personal information with Facebook but not telling users
Facebook is getting ahold of sensitive personal information that smartphone owners submit to entirely separate mobile apps, thanks to a software tool that immediately shares that data with the social network to improve ad targeting, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. It’s long been known that apps outside of Facebook’s ecosystem can and do willingly share data with the company to make it easier to reach existing and new users on the platform through ads. Yet the WSJ report highlights a particularly privacy-violating behavior by health and fitness apps where the information shared can be anything from diet and exercise activities to a user’s ovulation cycle and whether they intend to get pregnant.
According to the...