Facebook generated significant controversy when outraged users revealed that the VPN it promotes within its android and iOS apps not only does a poor job of ensuring people’s privacy online but actually intentionally funnels users’ browsing data straight back to Facebook. The android app had already been recommending the Facebook-owned Onavo VPN since 2016 but people took more notice of its recent addition into the iOS Facebook app. This VPN, which is promoted to users as a way to safeguard their privacy and protect themselves against malicious online threats, actually does much less than most VPN services do to keep people’s online activities private. In fact, people’s browsing habits are sent to Facebook and the information is used in a variety of ways. Onavo is also more intrusive than standard VPN services due to being on all the time by default and deliberately difficult to turn off, instead of being an option people can choose to enable when they prefer. This is claimed by many reports and technology analysts to most likely be by design in order to give Facebook the maximum possible access to record and analyze people’s activity online.
Many people are alleging that the Onavo VPN is an underhanded move by Facebook that tricks users into thinking they’re protecting their privacy when they are really giving up nearly all of their mobile browsing data. A traditional VPN might log connection data but rarely logs all of a user’s activity throughout the browsing session, and many VPN service providers do not retain logs for long if they create any at all. While Onavo’s privacy policy does state how the VPN uses people’s data and sends it back to Facebook, it is argued that users are being misled since the app is suggested as a way to keep more of their data private online in a day and age where concerns over privacy and Big Data are beginning to increase.
Most people looking for a VPN are specifically hoping to anonymize their browsing data and prevent it from being collected, so a majority of the discussion surrounding the Facebook Onavo VPN controversy is regarding how it is an untrustworthy app and a poor solution to protecting oneself online. In addition to the major issue of sending logged data back to Facebook, Onavo has also come under fire in other ways. For example, it doesn’t use SSL encryption, which has long been a standard on most internet sites to better protect users’ data. Throughout the technology world, Facebook’s reputation is taking a hit in news articles, opinion pieces, and even on social media where people are calling attention to the ways in which this VPN might offer a false sense of security and are recommending that people not use the VPN Facebook suggested. This controversy could be harmful to Facebook if people lose trust in the company and start to worry about their safety and privacy on the social network.
Dil Bole Oberoi
