Facebook Used VPN ‘Privacy’ App to Spy on FB Users, Emails Reveal

With online privacy perhaps a more serious concern now that it has ever been—for all internet users but perhaps for porn fans in particular—the use of Virtual Proxy Networks, VPNs, has bee promoted by privacy activists as well as by major internet corporations as an extra layer of protection against exposure of personal data online. But when the world’s largest social network, Facebook, produced its own VPN app, Onavo, as a way for user to protect themselves, the reality of what Facebook was secretly up to was quite different from the advertising. In fact, Facebook was using the supposed privacy app to hoover up user data, which led to Apple booting Onavo out of its App Store in August. But internal Facebook emails released by the United Kingdom’s parliament on Wednesday show that the social media giant’s use of Onavo to spy on its own users was far more extensive than has been previously revealed, according to a report by 9to5 Mac.  Facebook used Onavo data to track users online habits, collecting the data to use against the company’s competitors—targeting WhatsApp and Snapchat in particular, according to a report by Mashable.   “Facebook used Onavo to conduct global surveys of the usage of mobile apps by customers, and apparently without their knowledge," Member of Parliament Damian Collins, who chairs the committee that obtained and released the Facebook emails, said. "They used this data to assess not just how many people had downloaded apps, but how often they used them. This knowledge helped them to decide which companies to acquire, and which to treat as a threat." In a statement posted on Wednesday, Facebook defended its use of Onavo data as “market research,” and said that it warned users that by using the “safer” connection provided by Onavo, they would be giving up their data. “We’ve always been clear when people download Onavo about the information that is collected and how it is used, including by Facebook,” the statement said. “Websites and apps have used tools like Onavo for market research services for years. We use Onavo, App Annie, comScore, and publicly available tools to help us understand the market and improve all our services.” The data collected from Onavo users was essential in guiding Facebook to pay a whopping $19 billion to acquire the encrypted text messaging app WhatsApp, the emails show. In addition to revealing new details on Facebook’s use of user data gathered by the  VPN app, according to an article published Thursday by the business magazine Entrepreneur,  the internal emails show that Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg remains “ruthless” about “making money.” “If you take one thing away from wading through 250 pages of Facebook documents, it is this,” the magazine wrote. “Here is a company that is totally ruthless about growth.” Photo by Anthony Quintano / Wikimedia Commons