Online Shopping Apps Collect Users' Personal Info- Study

More than half of the top 60 Android shopping apps collect users’ personal information through trackers, a new study has discovered.

The result is from a privacy risk assessment on Opera Max, a leading data management and data savings app for Android.

The 60 most popular shopping apps were reviewed using privacy mode on this app. Another research showed that personal information such as user's name, email address, locations, search terms and phone number are shared with third parties through trackers.

Some of the most “leaky” shopping apps, such as Amazon, BestBuy, JC Penney and Newegg, send relatively high numbers of trackers.

The study also showed that as many as 96% of the shopping apps did not use full encryption to connect the apps to their servers.

This poses privacy risks to mobile shoppers when they are using these apps.

Personal data can be shared with third parties through trackers on shopping apps or unencrypted http connections over mobile carrier connections.

Sensitive data such as bank account numbers and other financial information, which are stored in online retailer accounts or shopping apps, can be intercepted and read by identity thieves via public or unsecured Wi-Fi networks.

“Most people would not reveal their credit card details or full name to employees of a physical store where they live when shopping and browsing for products. But, on mobile apps people are not aware that this kind of information can be shared,” said Sergey Lossev, Head of Product, Opera Max.

“That is why we have implemented privacy mode in Opera Max. We want to educate our users by revealing which apps are sharing your data through trackers without your permission.”