Facebook’s latest viral app Most Used Words is able to hoover up all of people’s personal information.The app was created by company called Vonvon, a startup launched in March and has more than 200 million users with its viral content.
Most Used Words has been getting a lot of attention from consumer privacy experts recently and it has been shared over 16 million times on Facebook. Asking for permission to see everything a user has ever liked, the app is able to gather up information about the computer that is being used, including its IP address and what browser they are using, both of which can easily be used to steal further personal information.
The app gets user’s Facebook profile information, as well as the entire friends list. Also, it can see every photo associated with the user, including the ones they are tagged in on other users' timelines.
Comparitech, a tech comparison and review website, investigated the specifics of the app and showed that users must declare they are willing to give away almost all personal details about themselves to use Vonvon.me's service.
It also revealed that Most Used Words app's privacy policy says information it gathers can be stored on Vonvon's servers at any location in the world, and will be able to use any non-personally-identifying information of the user, even after the membership or use of its services has ended, Wired reported.
Vonvon’s policy also mentioned that the company will not pass on a person's information to third party companies. However, they do not cover what third parties might do with the user’s data. However, it is not clear if any of the user’s data has been sold, or what Vonvon plans to do with it.
Vonvon president David Hahn said the company simply wants access to all the data so that future apps created by the company will work seamlessly, as existing users would not have to constantly agree to new apps accessing certain parts of their Facebook history and activity.
To show it wants to protect user privacy, Vonvon updated the app to request only access to public information that is available on Facebook, including friends list and timeline data, according to BGR.