While there is a lot to debate in the Android vs. iOS matchup, there's one thing that Android has for developers that iOS does not: a more open operating system that makes app submission and development easier.
However, that may not be as good a thing as you'd think. A series of French researchers, led by Luigi Vigneri of Eurecom, discovered that thousands of your favorite Android apps may actually be spying on you. The researchers discovered a way to detect if an Android app has connections to advertising and user tracking sites. What did they find?
"A selection of 2,000 free Google Play apps connected to a whopping 250,000 sites spread over 2,000 domains. Most of them talk to only a handful of sites (Google's ad services dominate the top 10), but 10 percent connect to 500 or more - one egregious offender links to over 2,000 sites. Only 30 percent of the apps talked to user tracking sites, but some of those were communicating with 800 or more addresses," reports Engadget.
It appears that nine out of 10 withing that 10 percent are connected to Google-owned websites.
While this development is concerning, very few users actually know about the ad tracking structure. Thankfully, the researchers are releasing an app that they've titled NoSuchApp, or NSA for short. This app will let users scan their favorite apps to see if they have any of these connections installed.
You can read the full report at MIT Technology Review.
