Meta's apps hoover up triple the data of Apple and Microsoft, new study finds
A new Surfshark study names Meta the most data-hungry Big Tech firm, collecting triple the data of Apple or Microsoft. Here's what it means for your privacy.
A new study from Surfshark has revealed that Meta's apps are the most data-hungry among the biggest tech companies. The research analyzed 171 apps across Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta, counting how many of the 35 data categories each developer self-reported collecting. Meta apps averaged 25 data types, more than triple the amount gathered by Microsoft and Apple.
Seven Meta apps, led by Meta AI, collected the most data, each logging 32 or 33 out of the possible 35 data types. This level of data collection allows Meta to create detailed profiles of users' lives, used for hyper-targeted advertising. Privacy experts warn that the sheer amount of data collected, regardless of individual app's data harvesting, poses a significant threat to user privacy.
Written by urgent.news from TechRadar's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
