- Meta and Andandex were seen using secret tracking techniques
- Techniques violated Google Play policies
- This code was mysteriously removed after being identified by researchers
Meta and Endex have been accused of fastening the protection requirements of privacy protection by connecting their web browsing activity and cookies through local Android applications using Meta Pixel and Endex Metrica Trackers.
This method involves collecting data through a local host function, which is made in many local Android apps used for testing purposes.
Following the release of computer scientists in IMDEA Networks, Red Bood University, and Livein, the script -related scripts were removed.
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Secret tracking in Android apps and browsers
In particular, the tracking was seen on Meta’s Facebook and Instagram apps, as well as on the map and browser of the Andex.
Apps use a local host, which, as part of their ability to connect browsing data with user identity, allow a device to send itself a network application.
In the words of the researcher, “These ancestral Android apps receive meta -pixel and the browsers ‘metal, cookies and commands from the meta -pixel and the Yandex Metrica script embedded on thousands of websites. These Javascripts put loads on users’ mobile browsers and contact the local hostess.”
What Meta and Endex must have done is to create a crack in the Android sandbox environment by which they can remove website data and cookies, ignore these built -in security and privacy concerns, and then identify the user’s identification, or the user’s identity, or the user’s identity.
When the secret tracking procedures are investigated by Register“We are talking to Google to remove a potentially wrong confrontation with Google,” said Google. When aware of concerns, we have decided to stop this feature together with Google to resolve the issue.
According to researchers, Yandex has been using this secret tracking method since 2017, while Meta started in September 2024.
Firefox and chromium -based web browsers were the main targets of web data extraction, able to extract meta and neandex cookies that should be inaccessible due to cookie clearing, Poshneo browsing, and Android’s app permits.
A Google representative said ARS Technica“In this report, developers are using the capabilities in many of the iOS and Android browsers that clearly violate our principles of security and privacy,” the representative said citing the developers behind Meta Pixel and Nandex Metrica. “We have already implemented changes to reduce these invasive techniques and have begun our investigation and are in direct contact with the parties.”
