Dating apps leak personal data, Norwegian group says

LONDON — Dating apps including Grindr, OkCupid and Tinder leak personal information to advertising tech companies in possible violation of European data privacy laws, a Norwegian consumer group said in a report Tuesday.

The Norwegian Consumer Council said it found “serious privacy infringements” in its analysis of how shadowy online ad companies track and profile smartphone users.


The council, a government-funded nonprofit group, commissioned cybersecurity company Mnemonic to study 10 Android mobile apps. It found that the apps sent user data to at least 135 different third party services involved in advertising or behavioral profiling.

“The situation is completely out of control,” the council said, urging European regulators to enforce the continent’s strict General Data Privacy Regulation, or GDPR. It said the majority of the apps did not present users with legally-compliant consent mechanisms.

The council took action against some of the companies it examined, filing formal complaints with Norway’s data protection authority against Grindr, Twitter-owned mobile app advertising platform MoPub and four ad tech companies. Grindr sent data including users’ GPS location, age and gender to the other companies, the council said.

Twitter said it disabled Grindr’s MoPub account and is investigating the issue “to understand the sufficiency of Grindr’s consent mechanism.”


Period tracker app MyDays and virtual makeup app Perfect 365 were also among the apps sharing personal data with ad services, the report said.

Match Group, owner of Tinder and OkCupid, said the company shares information with third parties only when it is “deemed necessary to operate its platform” with third party apps. The company said it considers the practice in line with all European and U.S. regulations.

The U.S. doesn’t have federal regulation like the GDPR, although some states, notably California, have enacted their own laws. Nine civil rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of California, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Public Citizen and U.S. PIRG sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, Congress and state attorneys general of California, Texas and Oregon asking them to investigate the apps named in the report.

“Congress should use the findings of the report as a road map for a new law that ensures that such flagrant violations of privacy found in the EU are not acceptable in the U.S.,” the groups said in a statement.

The FTC confirmed it received the letter but declined to comment further. The creators of the MyDays, Perfect 365 and Grindr apps did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

source: technology.inquirer.net

China tech firm to sell gay app Grindr after US pressure

SHANGHAI — One of China’s biggest mobile gaming companies said it would sell gay dating app Grindr following pressure from US authorities concerned over the potential misuse of the app’s data by the Chinese government.

Beijing-based Kunlun Tech Co Ltd said in a filing with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in southern China that it would sell Grindr by June 2020.

The app, which bills itself as “the world’s largest social networking app for gay, bi, trans and queer people,” was founded in 2009 and says it has millions of users worldwide.

US officials feared that people with American security clearances who use the app could be blackmailed if China’s government demanded user data from Kunlun Tech, The Wall Street Journal reported in March, citing unnamed sources.


China and the United States are locked in a tense trade war which includes a side skirmish in technology.

China has previously announced a strategy of achieving global dominance in high-tech fields like artificial intelligence and use of Big Data.

But that has raised US objections over Chinese state support for its tech players, as well as fears of advanced cyber-espionage by China.

The Chinese company was ordered to divest itself of Grindr by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews foreign investments in sensitive industries or those deemed harmful to US national security.

Kunlun Tech’s exchange filing, submitted on Monday, said it signed an agreement on May 9 with US authorities regarding the sale.

The agreement restricts Kunlun Tech from accessing some of Grindr’s user information and from transferring sensitive data to people or entities within China.

Grindr is also required to stop all operations in China and must get CFIUS approval for three of its board members. In addition, one board must be an American citizen with US security clearance.

“If the company sells Grindr shares in the future, it will reduce potential political and policy risks that the company’s overseas operations face,” Kunlun Tech’s filing said.

The company paid $93 million for a 60 percent stake in Grindr in 2016, completing the full acquisition two years later for another $152 million.


source: technology.inquirer.net

Dating app fires back at billboard linking it to STD spread

LOS ANGELES— A popular dating app is telling a Los Angeles-based AIDS health care group to take down a billboard that links dating apps with sexual diseases.

The AIDS Healthcare Foundation said Monday that it received a cease-and-desist letter from Tinder that claims the billboard falsely associates the dating app with venereal diseases.

The foundation’s billboard shows a silhouette of a man labeled “Tinder” face-to-face with a woman labeled “chlamydia.” A silhouette of a man labeled “Grindr,” a gay dating app, faces a male silhouette labeled “gonorrhea.”

The foundation says it sent a letter to Tinder saying it will not take down the billboard.

The foundation provides health care to HIV and AIDS patients and says its campaign is designed to remind dating-app users about the risk of casual sex.

source: technology.inquirer.net