Meta and Russian search engine Yandex have been secretly tracking what Android users do on their web browsers—even when users are in private or incognito mode—according to experts from Radboud University and IMDEA Networks.
Researchers discovered that Meta’s apps like Facebook and Instagram, and Yandex’s apps such as Yandex Maps, were running hidden scripts in the background on Android phones. These scripts sent browser activity data back to the apps without users knowing or giving consent.
This bypasses Android’s security rules and breaks privacy protections built into browsers and the Android system itself.
Google confirmed these companies used Android features "in unintended ways that blatantly violate our security and privacy principles."
Meta said it’s investigating the issue and paused the tracking feature while working with Google. Yandex denied collecting sensitive data and said the feature only improves personalization in their apps.
The covert tracking by Meta reportedly lasted about eight months and involved data from 16,000 websites in the EU. Yandex has been doing this since 2017, with data from 1,300 sites.
Major browsers like Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and DuckDuckGo were affected, but Mozilla and DuckDuckGo have taken steps to block this kind of tracking.
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in t...
An explosion at a farmhouse in northern Italy during a police raid killed three Carabinieri officers and injured 12 others, Italy's fire service said ...
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Tuesday it had opened a criminal case against exiled Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, accusing him...
Global warming is crossing dangerous thresholds sooner than expected with the world’s coral reefs now in an almost irreversible die-off, marking wha...
The United Kingdom has completely lifted its arms embargo on Azerbaijan and Armenia, according to a written statement by Minister for Europe, North Am...
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018.
An explosion at a farmhouse in northern Italy during a police raid killed three Carabinieri officers and injured 12 others, Italy's fire service said on X on Tuesday.
Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Tuesday it had opened a criminal case against exiled Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, accusing him of creating a "terrorist organisation" and of plotting to violently seize power.
Global warming is crossing dangerous thresholds sooner than expected with the world’s coral reefs now in an almost irreversible die-off, marking what scientists on Monday described as the first “tipping point” in climate-driven ecosystem collapse.
Video from the USGS (United States Geological Survey) showed on Friday (19 September) the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupting and spewing lava.
At least 69 people have died and almost 150 injured following a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Cebu City in the central Visayas region of the Philippines, officials said, making it one of the country’s deadliest disasters this year.
Authorities in California have identified the dismembered body discovered in a Tesla registered to singer D4vd as 15-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who had been missing from Lake Elsinore since April 2024.
A tsunami threat was issued in Chile after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the Drake Passage on Friday. The epicenter was located 135 miles south of Puerto Williams on the north coast of Navarino Island.
The war in Ukraine has reached a strategic impasse, and it seems that the conflict will not be solved by military means. This creates a path toward one of two alternatives: either a “frozen” phase that can last indefinitely or a quest for a durable political regulation.
SpaceX launched its 11th Starship from Texas on 13 October, landing in the Indian Ocean ahead of testing an upgraded version for future moon and Mars missions.
From Sunday, all non-EU citizens, including British visitors, will face new biometric checks when entering and exiting the European Union under its long-delayed Entry/Exit System (EES).
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University, Richard Robson of the University of Melbourne, and Omar Yaghi of the University of California.
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for their groundbreaking discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in electric circuits.
United States chipmaker AMD will supply artificial intelligence chips to OpenAI in a multi-year agreement that could generate tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue and give the ChatGPT maker the option to acquire up to 10% of the company.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment