Education
Fertility Premom App reportedly exchanged consumer data with Chinese companies
A fertility app that helps women track their cycles in hopes of becoming pregnant exchanged consumer data with a variety of Chinese firms, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. The International Digital Accountability Council (IDAC), a non-profit consumer protection watchdog, said its research found that the Android edition of the app exchanged data with three Chinese analytics companies, including specific device identifiers that could help them monitor users' behaviors across other devices and websites.
IDAC sent letters earlier this month to FTC, Google, and the Illinois Attorney General, where Premom is located.
Since users had no way to opt out of monitoring and were not even aware of what was going on, IDAC claims the activity may be in violation of federal and state law. It's also a breach of the Google rules.
IDAC listed companies such as Jiguang, UMSNS and Umeng. Umeng, the latter firm, is owned by the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. The Beijing-based company offers mobile device analytics tools for mobile development teams and individual developers according to its Crunchbase profile. Jiguang 's profile also notes that it provides its clients with analysis of consumer behavior, precision marketing , financial risk. Jiguang told the Post that it was 100 percent in line with Chinese law.
Premom did not respond to our request for comments on Thursday, but told the Post that it had revoked Jiguang's access to the data, which IDAC also confirmed. However, according to IDAC, the Premom app also shared data with the other two Chinese companies through at least mid-June. Premom told the Post that they were not "actually" using either service.
