{"id":17982,"date":"2020-04-06T20:11:18","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T20:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rbsitsoftwaresolution.com\/blog\/no-proof-of-a-houseparty-breach-but-its-privacy-policy-is-still-gatecrashing-your-data.html"},"modified":"2020-04-06T20:11:18","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T20:11:18","slug":"no-proof-of-a-houseparty-breach-but-its-privacy-policy-is-still-gatecrashing-your-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/no-proof-of-a-houseparty-breach-but-its-privacy-policy-is-still-gatecrashing-your-data.html","title":{"rendered":"No proof of a Houseparty breach, but its privacy policy is still gatecrashing your data"},"content":{"rendered":"

Houseparty<\/a> has been a smashing success with people staying home during the coronavirus pandemic who still want to connect with friends.<\/p>\n

The group video chat app, interspersed with games and other bells and whistles, raises it above the more mundane Zooms and Hangouts (fun only in their names, otherwise pretty serious tools used by companies, schools and others who just need to work) when it comes to creating engaged leisure time, amid a climate where all of them are seeing a huge surge<\/a> in growth.<\/p>\n

All that looked like it could possibly fall apart for Houseparty <\/a> and its new owner Epic Games<\/a> when a series<\/a> of reports<\/a> appeared Monday claiming Houseparty was breached, and that malicious hackers were using users\u2019 data to access their accounts on other apps such as Spotify and Netflix.<\/p>\n

Houseparty was swift to deny the reports and even go so far as to claim \u2014 without evidence \u2014 it was investigating indications that the \u201cbreach\u201d was a \u201cpaid commercial smear to harm Houseparty,\u201d offering a $1 million reward<\/a> to whoever could prove its theory.<\/p>\n

For now, there is no proof that there was a breach, nor proof that there was a paid smear campaign, and when we reached out to ask Houseparty and Epic about this investigation, a spokesperson said: \u201cWe don\u2019t have anything to add here at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t mean that Houseparty doesn\u2019t have privacy issues.<\/p>\n

As the old saying goes, \u201cif the product is free, you are the product.\u201d In the case of the free app Houseparty, the publishers detail a 12,000+ word privacy policy that covers any and all uses of data that it might collect by way of you logging on to or using its service, laying out the many ways that it might use data for promotional or commercial purposes.<\/p>\n

There are some clear lines in the policy about what it won\u2019t use. For example, while phone numbers might get shared for tech support, with partnerships that you opt into, to link up contacts to talk with and to authenticate you, \u201cwe will never share your phone number or the phone numbers of third parties in your contacts with anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

But beyond that, there are provisions in there that could see Houseparty selling anonymized and other data, leading Ray Walsh of research firm ProPrivacy to describe it<\/a> as a \u201cprivacy nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnybody who decides to use the Houseparty application to stay in contact during quarantine needs to be aware that the app collects a worrying amount of personal information,\u201d he said. \u201cThis includes geolocation data, which could, in theory, be used to map the location of each user. A closer look at Houseparty\u2019s\u00a0privacy policy reveals that the firm promises to anonymize and aggregate data before it is shared with the third-party affiliates and partners it works with. However, time and time again, researchers have proven that previously anonymized data can be re-identified.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are ways around this for the proactive. Walsh notes that users can go into the settings to select \u201cprivate mode\u201d to \u201clock\u201d rooms they use to stop people from joining unannounced or uninvited; switch locations off; use fake names and birthdates; disconnect all other social apps; and launch the app on iOS with a long press to \u201csneak into the house\u201d without notifying all your contacts.<\/p>\n

But with a consumer app, it\u2019s a longshot to assume that most people, and the younger users who are especially interested in Houseparty, will go through all of these extra steps to secure their information.<\/p>\n

\n

Under quarantine, media is actually social<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/UOhe9myJs6Q\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Houseparty has been a smashing success with people staying home during the coronavirus pandemic who still want to connect with friends. The group video chat app, interspersed with games and <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-17982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t