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Facebook Is Shutting Down Its Sneaky, Data-Harvesting VPN
Facebook’s Onavo VPN app has been dying a slow death since it was exposed as a clandestine data collection
monster last year. The app was pulled from the iOS app store for violating Apple’s rules and now Facebook
has voluntarily decided to remove it from Google Play. At the very least, the move seems to signal that the
social network is becoming more aware of the risks its creepy privacy practices pose.
When Facebook bought Onavo in October of 2013, it was an independent secure VPN service that offered
users an app to help monitor their data usage and limit background activities on their smartphone. Onavo
was also collecting market research on the time users spent on apps, the websites they visit, as well as
their country of origin, device, and network type. Facebook recognized that all that info could be very powerful
in its data-hungry hands and shelled out somewhere around $200 million for the company. Most Onavo users
probably weren’t aware of the change of ownership, and new adopters could easily miss that they were installing a Facebook app when they downloaded Onavo Protect.
TechCrunch first found that the Onavo app has been removed from Google Play on Friday.
For now, the app will reportedly continue to function on phones that already have it installed
but will be shut down completely over time. When Gizmodo asked Facebook for comment, a
spokesperson told us, “Market research helps companies build better products for people.
We are shifting our focus to reward-based market research which means we’re going to end the Onavo program.”
Like other VPN services, Onavo Protect helped users hide their IP addresses and locations from
trackers by redirecting their web surfing activity through a third-party server. While users may
have been protecting themselves from being tracked by a company like Comcast, they weren’t always
aware that they were giving exclusive access to their activities to one of the world’s biggest (and most scandal-prone) data-driven tech companies.
One reported use Facebook found for Onavo was monitoring how its own services were performing
against competitors like Snapchat. And even before the social network bought Onavo, documents
show Facebook was using the firm’s data to learn things like users were sending more than twice as
many messages through WhatsApp as they were through Facebook’s Messenger in April of 2013.
It seems likely that that information encouraged to Facebook buy WhatsApp for the jaw-dropping sum of $19 billion in 2014.
But when Facebook started using its primary mobile app to encourage users to download Onavo Protect,
its profile was raised considerably and Apple stepped in with concerns about it violating users’ privacy.
Not wanting any trouble, Facebook pulled the app from the iOS store but was quietly using some of its
code for a new research program in which it paid teens a small fee to install a special research app on
their phones that gave Facebook total access to their activities. When Apple found out, it was enraged
and revoked Facebook’s developer credentials that allow it to conduct internal testing on new apps.
It appears that Facebook is getting ahead of any potential trouble it could have with Google by simply
shutting down the Onavo program altogether. But all the data it collected will surely continue to inform
Facebook decisions and it’s unclear how the company’s “reward-based market research” will be conducted
going forward. A good rule of thumb with Facebook is to always expect the worst, most underhanded thing you can imagine.
