Data theft common in Android apps stores
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, August 30, 2012
Nearly 60 percent of the applications in online app stores in the Chinese Android market disclose users' private information, Fudan University said Wednesday.
Researchers at the university studied more than 300 apps on seven major online app stores and found almost 60 percent of the apps stole information, including contacts, locations and text messages, of the users and sold them to advertisers and app developers for a profit. Most users have no idea that this is happening and are not even aware of spy apps running in their smartphones' operating systems.
Unlike Apple's App Store, Android is an "open" system, which creates privacy concerns as the safety of the apps provided by third party developers are not supervised by the online stores or government.
The study suggests laws to punish those who maliciously steal and leak the private data of users.
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