The Onavo thing alone sounds utterly insane to me. I often think criticisms of Facebook and similar companies are overblown, personally, but Facebook really sho

The Onavo thing alone sounds utterly insane to me. I often think criticisms of Facebook and similar companies are overblown, personally, but Facebook really should have, at the least, faced as many repercussions as Volkswagen did for their deceit, if the facts are correct. >One area of focus for the FTC is Onavo, an Israeli mobile-analytics startup that Facebook purchased in 2013. Onavo offered a free mobile app that described itself as a way to “keep you and your data safe” by creating a virtual private network. To do this, the company redirected internet traffic on Onavo to Facebook’s servers, which allowed it to log every action in a central database. >That enabled Facebook to quietly track what users did on their phones, including which apps they used and for how long, the Journal reported in 2017. Onavo data was frequently cited in internal research and strategy decks >At one point, Facebook—through Onavo—was able to see Snap data as specific as the number of messages a user sent or how much time those users spent in specific Snapchat features, the former employees said. Facebook couldn’t see the content of the messages or images. The visibility into Snap usage lessened considerably after Snap encrypted its app traffic. >A Facebook spokeswoman said the app was similar to other industry market research tools. Facebook literally published MitM (technically "MitMo") malware disguised as a VPN security app so it could intercept all unencrypted network traffic and record user actions, in part so they could spy on competing apps (and also, presumably, to spy on everything you do to serve you more ads and sell your behavioral data). This is exactly what spyware-distributing criminal organizations with front companies do, as documented by threat intelligence firms. If this actually is similar to any other industry "market research tools", as they claim, the entire industry is fucked. If you bought a home security camera and later found out it was secretly sending back everything it saw and heard so they could sell the video and audio to advertising firms, causing the banner ads you come across to be tailored to your observed food, TV, and sexual preferences, the uproar would undoubtedly put them out of business. But Facebook can just quietly shut things down once there's negative press, and move on like it never happened. Snap is 100% in the right for compiling all of this info on "Voldemort".