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.
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The UK is experiencing potentially record-breaking temperatures after forecasters confirmed some areas reached highs close to 34°C on Monday.
The World Health Organization warned on Monday that the fast-moving Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda was outpacing response efforts, with 220 suspected deaths reported so far.
China has launched three taikonauts to its Tiangong space station, including one crew member set to spend a full year in orbit in one of the longest planned space missions ever attempted.
For the first time in decades, Armenia has rail access to the EU. The Akhalkalaki–Kars corridor, running through Georgia into Türkiye, is now officially open for Armenian cargo - a quiet but consequential shift in the region’s economic geography.
The inaugural Enhanced Games began in Las Vegas on Sunday (24 May), launching one of the most controversial experiments in modern sport, in which athletes openly compete using performance-enhancing drugs banned under traditional anti-doping rules.
A peace agreement between Washington and Tehran is yet to materialise, with U.S. President Donald Trump saying that negotiations are incomplete and an Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman saying that a deal isn't imminent.
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Police fired tear gas and clashed with protesters in central Belgrade on Saturday, as tens of thousands gathered to demand early elections and an end to the more than decade-long rule of Serbia's President Aleksandar Vučić.
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China will send an astronaut to its space station on Sunday for a one-year mission, the longest duration for the country so far. The mission will help study long-duration human physiology in space as China works toward a crewed Moon landing by 2030.
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China has launched the world’s first experiment to study how artificial human embryos develop in space, marking a major step in understanding whether humans could one day reproduce beyond Earth.
Japanese filmmaker Koji Fukada has said that the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to “jump straight to the result” risks undermining the purpose of art, which he believes should be rooted in self-expression and a deeper understanding of the world.
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