Most Apps share user data with Google

This is a generation of apps. As many things are processed via mobile phone these days, users download various mobile applications to serve their purpose.

While downloading, mobile users have to share their personal data with the app owners. And almost 90 percent of free apps that are downloaded on the Google Play store share their user data with Google, and that too without the consent of the users.

A new report of Financial Times revealed that the personal data of the users of mobile apps like age, gender, location etc. has been shared with the Google, the tech giant.

The report also says that Google is not the only tech company that collects the user data, but other companies like Facebook, Twitter, Verizon, Microsoft, and Amazon are also monetizing user data with target advertising.

Almost 43 percent of apps share data with Facebook and several apps share the data of users with other companies like Twitter, Amazon etc.

The data thus collected can be used for various purposes especially targeted advertising. Mainly news apps and other apps that are aimed at children are mainly sharing user data with Google.

Google has denied it saying that the ordinary function of apps has been misrepresented by the report and if it is true, it will take against such apps for violating its policies.

Though several tech companies are harvesting data for some years, now due to the emergence of scandals, users and prominent privacy advocates are demanding transparency on data collection. They are demanding how much data has been stored by the companies.

Moreover, they are demanding that there should be control on their own data when to use it and when to delete.

The European GDPR law displays the demand of user data. The GDPR law forced Google to change its way to bundle its apps. Google decided to charge a licensing fee secretly from phone makers those who want to use its services like Gmail, Maps and YouTube in the European Area from October 29.

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