Facebook will close its OnyVo spyware VPN

At the end of January on Habré there was news that Facebook has been running a secret Atals project for two years. Within its framework, volunteers were paid $ 20 per month to install some kind of pseudo-VPN, an application that installs the root certificate on the smartphone and then monitors the user's actions.

Journalists during the investigation found out that spyware VPN is based on the Onavo Protect application code that was blocked in the AppStore. The application comes with a root certificate, it has the ability to intercept "personal messages in social media, chat rooms in instant messaging applications, including photos / videos sent to others, emails, web searches, web browsing and current location information ". Now it became known that the company will complete the work Onavo.

Completion of work involves the termination of the use of user data - they will no longer be provided to marketers from interested companies.
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The social network also stops recruiting new volunteers for its project. Previously, they were offered “paid shadowing” through the Facebook Research application, which continued to spread through the Google application catalog (as mentioned above, Apple had blocked the program).



However, the Facebook Research application will continue to work. The company will offer a transparent scheme of work - in order for users to understand what data they provide and for which they receive money.

Previously, Onavo was positioned as an application that limits the number of applications using background data. It was also said that it provides the ability to use "a secure VPN-network in exchange for your personal data." In addition, the company wrote in the context that VPN Onavo will collect data such as the time spent using certain applications, the amount of information consumed, the list of visited sites, the country of the user, the device and the type of network.

A Facebook spokesman has already announced that the social network plans to focus on paid marketing research, which means completing the Onavo program.

The story of Onavo began in 2013. Then Facebook acquired the service for $ 200 million. It was claimed that the social network will use the application to collect user data - namely, information about what users are doing with their smartphones. There is evidence that the decision to purchase WhatsApp was based, in particular, on the analysis of information received from Onavo.

At that time, the corporation positioned its VPN as a reliable way to limit traffic consumption, block dangerous websites, and prevent intruders from stealing personal data. At the same time, the corporation analyzed the traffic of users of the service. "Insight" helped Facebook to identify new trends in the use of mobile devices and focus on disarming competitors - for example, Facebook developers were well aware of the functions that competitors' development needed to copy.

Cloning these functions has become a new social network strategy. An excellent example of this is the Instagram version of individual Snapchat features (namely, Snapchat Stories).

All this lasted for several years, until Onavo was suspected of monitoring the personal data of users. For security reasons, the application was blocked in the AppStore.

Interestingly, the social network is not too spread about its program "pay and give data." You can talk about a certain level of secrecy. When the secret became clear, Facebook said that the social network never hid anything.

After a series of scandals, both large and not so great, Apple banned not only the VPN service itself, but also a number of other Facebook services and applications, some of which were used by the developers of the social network itself. The corporation also withdrew the Facebook certificate, which complicated the life of the social network.

To protect itself and not bring the situation to blocking social network applications also in the Google directory, Facebook recalls Onavo. But, as mentioned above, Facebook Research remains on Google Play. Now the social network is trying to whitewash itself in the eyes of users and developers of other companies, so it takes a number of steps that can help in this social network.

But without Onavo, Facebook is losing a powerful tool for marketing research, so now the company will have to act, if not blindly, then close to that. Actually, almost all technology companies operate, conducting marketing research, studying the market from the side, but Facebook has been able to do it for many years from the inside. Of course, there is still Facebook Research, but this is not Onavo.