CCTV: Chinese Mobile Ads May Steal Users' Location, Contacts
CCTV, 11/29/12
An investigative report by China Central TV (CCTV) has revealed that a number of Chinese mobile advertising companies and software developers have partnered to install tracking plug-ins on user handsets. The companies use the plug-ins to secretly track user locations, access information from user address books, access private user information, and display ads in the notification bar of user handsets.
The report, citing industry insider statistics, claims that 73% of malicious mobile ads will attempt in some way to obtain user location information and 47% of malicious ads will attempt to obtain user phone numbers. CCTV has suggested that many of these spam text messages and sales calls Chinese users receive daily originate from information gathered through this method.
According to the report, 94.7% of Android handset users have advertising plug-ins installed on their handsets. Each user has an average of 11.7 advertising software programs installed on their handsets, and the average Chinese user receives 8.4 malicious ads per day, as compared to 4 spam text messages per day.
Editor's Note: "Youmi Advertising," one of the advertising companies detailed in the CCTV report, has responded to information brought forth in the report, calling it completely untrue. According to Youmi, protecting users' private information is of great importance to the company and Youmi would never take users private information.
Keywords: scam wireless mobile advertising CCTV spam Youmi Information Technology
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