Security News Verizon plans to install "AppFlash" Spyware on All Android Phones

[Ink]

The First Horseman of the Privacy Apocalypse Has Already Arrived: Verizon Announces Plans to Install Spyware on All Its Android Phones

Within days of Congress repealing online privacy protections, Verizon has announced new plans to install software on customers’ devices to track what apps customers have downloaded. With this spyware, Verizon will be able to sell ads to you across the Internet based on things like which bank you use and whether you’ve downloaded a fertility app.

Verizon’s use of “AppFlash”—an app launcher and web search utility that Verizon will be rolling out to their subscribers’ Android devices “in the coming weeks”—is just the latest display of wireless carriers’ stunning willingness to compromise the security and privacy of their customers by installing spyware on end devices.

The AppFlash Privacy Policy published by Verizon states that the app can be used to:

“collect information about your device and your use of the AppFlash services. This information includes your mobile number, device identifiers, device type and operating system, and information about the AppFlash features and services you use and your interactions with them. We also access information about the list of apps you have on your device.”

Troubling as it may be to collect intimate details about what apps you have installed, the policy also illustrates Verizon’s intent to gather location and contact information:

“AppFlash also collects information about your device’s precise location from your device operating system as well as contact information you store on your device.”

 

[In2an3_PpG]

Glad to see Verizon in the lead so far with taking away some privacy.

 

[Solarquest]

Thanks for sharing, unbelievable news!
One huge reason not to choose Verizon as mobile carrier...

 

[Winter Soldier]

It seems to be a kind of legalized spyware..

 

[Ink]

Update: Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon say you shouldn’t worry about gutting of internet privacy rules

 

[Deleted member 178]

And people blame some telemetry from MS loool

 

[Exterminator]

Verizon Rebuts Critics of Data-Collecting App

 

[Vasudev]

I think XDA forums will be flooded with Custom ROM requests for VZW. Haahaa.