Technical Doctorz

Facebook will end a controversial market research program that violated Apple developer guidelines in order to harvest user data from the phones of volunteers. The company said early Wednesday evening that the Facebook Research app, which offers volunteers between the ages of 13 and 35 monthly $20 gift cards in exchange for near-total access to the data on their phones, would no longer be available on iOS. It will apparently continue to be available for Android users. TechCrunch reported on Tuesday that the company has been paying the gift cards to people aged 13 to 35 in exchange for installing an app called Facebook Research on iOS and Android. The app monitors their phone and web activity and sends it back to Facebook for market research purposes. Facebook previously collected similar data using Onavo Protect, a VPN service that it acquired in 2013. The company has used the data to identify up-and-coming competitors, then acquire or clone them . Facebook removed the app from th

Facebook has run a program to collect intimate user data from paid volunteers for the past three years, according to a new report . TechCrunch reported that the company has been paying people ages 13 to 25 as much as $20 month in exchange for installing an app called Facebook Research on iOS or Android, which monitors their phone and web activity and sends it back to Facebook. The company confirmed the existence of the research program to TechCrunch . Facebook was previously collecting some of this data through Onavo Protect, a VPN service that it acquired in 2013. The data has proven extremely valuable to Facebook in identifying up-and-coming competitors, then acquiring or cloning them . Facebook removed the app from the App Store last summer after Apple complained that it violated the App Store’s guidelines on data collection. The Research app requires that users install a custom root certificate, which gives Facebook the ability to see users’ private messages, emails, web searc