Facebook discovers four more Chrome extensions that steal users’ data: here are what they are and why they should be removed.
Chrome extensions are again under accusation for violations of users’ privacy. Facebook Inc. and Facebook Ireland have sued two people in Portugal for stealing data from Facebook user profiles.
The two developers have created and spread on Google Chrome store four extensions for the browser that, according to Facebook, are real spyware. That is, viruses able to spy on users’ behavior and send the collected data to a remote server, without the user having been warned of this behavior and, above all, without the user having given his consent. The amount of data collected is considerable and more than enough to profile the spied users quite thoroughly. It should be noted that Facebook is no longer aiming to remove the extensions from Google’s store: it is going straight to court against the developers.
What do the four dangerous extensions do
Facebook specifies that the four Chrome extensions discovered do not attack the social infrastructure, but only operate on the user side, through the browser. Who hasn’t installed them, therefore, doesn’t risk anything. Those who did, however, gave away a lot of data to the two Portuguese developers – name, user ID, gender, sentimental status, age and a lot of other information related to their Facebook account.
They are, in essence, four extensions that do “scraping”: they subtract the information the user chooses to make public and put it together to profile him. Then they sell the profile to someone else, who will use that data for advertising purposes.
Quali sono le estensioni pericolose
Le quattro estensioni pericolose scoperte da Facebook, che hanno portato il colosso di Menlo Park a denunciare gli sviluppatori, sono:
- Web for Instagram plus DM
- Blue Messenger
- Emoji keyboard
- Green Messenger
Tranne Green Messenger, tutte le altre sono state rimosse dal Chrome Web Store ma sono ancora disponibili sul sito dello sviluppatore, Oink and Stuff. Chiunque abbia installato una di queste quattro estensioni, però, farebbe meglio a rimuoverla subito.