Facebook pulls the plug on controversial Onavo VPN app but it will continue to collect user data in other ways

Facebook is pulling the plug on its controversial Onavo Protect VPN app, reports TechCrunch. The social media giant had removed the app from the App Store last year after Apple complained that it violated their guidelines on privacy and data collection. The app has now been removed from the Google Play Store as well. 

The development comes in the wake of severe backlash from privacy advocates over Facebook’s Research app, which was allegedly found collecting private phone and web activity stats from paid volunteers for the past three years – under Facebook’s secret Project Atlas program. Facebook had been allegedly paying users ages 13 to 35 up to $20 plus referral fees a month in exchange for installing an app called Facebook Research on their Android or iOS devices, which was collecting this data and sending it back to Facebook. For “research” purposes.  

Facebook was previously collecting some of this data through the Onavo VPN service that it acquired for around $120 million in 2014 – you can say that it was Onavo that started it all in a way. The data collected through Onavo is said to have helped Facebook gauge the vast potential of WhatsApp -- a startup then -- at one point of time, then acquire it for $19 billion in the same year.     

The Facebook Research app is in fact said to be “a poorly re-branded build of the Onavo app,” a sort of workaround that the social media company chalked out after it was banned by Apple.  

Facebook has been in the thick of things ever since it was embroiled in the infamous Cambridge Analytica data scandal, and a string of data leaks that followed only escalated the tensions. And then it was caught paying volunteers to spy on their devices. The company is now looking to regain user/investor trust by seemingly doing the right thing – shutting down Onavo for good is one. Facebook has also reportedly stopped recruiting new volunteers for its Research app. 

But that does not mean it will stop collecting user data. Only, it will seemingly be more transparent in letting users know exactly what kind of data that Facebook has on them.  

“Market research helps companies build better products for people. We are shifting our focus to reward-based market research which means we're going to end the Onavo program,” a Facebook spokesperson was quoted by TechCrunch as saying. 

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