Temu—the Chinese shopping app that has rapidly grown so popular in the US that even Amazon is reportedly trying to copy it—is “dangerous malware” that’s secretly monetizing a broad swath of unauthorized user data, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin alleged in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
Griffin cited research and media reports exposing Temu’s allegedly nefarious design, which “purposely” allows Temu to “gain unrestricted access to a user’s phone operating system, including, but not limited to, a user’s camera, specific location, contacts, text messages, documents, and other applications.”
“Temu is designed to make this expansive access undetected, even by sophisticated users,” Griffin’s complaint said. “Once installed, Temu can recompile itself and change properties, including overriding the data privacy settings users believe they have in place.”
So just like the majority of USAian apps out there? I think Temu fits right in. Why are people so concerned about what China is doing with their data, but not the very countries they live in or (more importantly) the dominant online surveillance presence: the USA?
Why not use the English word for an entity that resides in the USA: American?
Because it’s imperialist and racist to pretend that USA is America.
Because I find USAian more appropriate. USA isn’t a representative of two entire continents.
I’m not sure I understand why this question comes up everytime some chinese app is in a news article.
Anyway, it should not come as a surprise, but “Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin”, someone who works as AG for a state in the US, presumably is more interested in US interests than Chinese interests, and presumably places more trust in the government and businesses of the country he lives in than in the government (and businesses, for where there’s a distinction anyway) of the country of his nation’s economic rival.
One thing that’s obvious here on Lemmy is that whataboutism works only in one direction. If an article is critical of China, Russia, Iran, or other dictatorships, you’d read, “But about U.S./EU/the West”. But there are tons of articles here critical of Western countries, and it’s accepted. Why is this? Just wumaos?
Believe it or not, I can be concerned about both.
The difference is, the place where I live has some data privacy regulations which actually get enforced, and I have some legal recourse against organizations which mishandle my data. China does not have such regulations and I do not have any recourse against organizations based there, so my risk from them is significantly higher.
“Temu is designed to make this expansive access undetected, even by sophisticated users,” Griffin’s complaint said. “Once installed, Temu can recompile itself and change properties, including overriding the data privacy settings users believe they have in place.”
So just like the majority USAian app out there?
Which apps do that? Because I am certain it’s NOT the majority, and very skeptical about any other apps doing that.
More about the part about stealing information. Most people barely look at permissions.
A flashlight app needs access to my calls, microphone, clipboard, filesystem, and network? Sure, I’ll install it.
or
Facebook needs access to all permissions? Oh is that what the popup said when I installed it?
All Temu had to do was ask and people would grant it.
On modern Android, apps need to ask for each permission when they’re about to use it for the first time. Not sure about Apple.
Google Play will also periodically revoque permissions to apps that haven’t used them for some time.
