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Content Type: Long Read
In June 2025, a team of researchers exposed how Meta and Yandex abused Android and browser-specific tools to track users outside of their application and collect associated data. The technique used to achieve this was truly innovative, and akin to malware behaviour. It exploited protocols to break the isolation between apps and browser, a fundamental security concept meant to protect users. This allowed these companies to tie the browsing history of individuals with their accounts on the…
Content Type: News & Analysis
It feels like WhatsApp is everywhere. Who isn’t familiar with the gentle ding as a message arrives - the relentless group chats, or the customer service bots? According to recent statistics, the service is used regularly by nearly 3 billion people around the world. Its core service - end-to-end encrypted messaging - is essential in today’s society.But private messaging services like WhatsApp are costly to run, and not something people are accustomed to paying for. Securing an income stream for…
Content Type: Long Read
INTRODUCTION
In recent years, major tech platforms have been rapidly evolving their business models. Despite their dominance in various markets, tech giants like Google and Meta are venturing into new territories to expand their user base. One of the most striking ventures has been their foray into the "connectivity market" through substantial, and occasionally unsuccessful, investments in network infrastructure.
Many tech companies are investing resources into network infrastructure, either…
Content Type: Press release
Meta, the largest provider of social media sites and display advertising in the UK, acquired GIPHY, the largest provider of GIFs. In its report of 30 November 2021 the CMA found that the completed merger between Meta and GIPHY will give rise to a substantial lessening of competition.
The CAT confirmed the CMA's assessment and dismissed all but one of Meta’s appeal grounds, paving the way for Meta to sell GIPHY, as demanded by the CMA.
PI was granted permission to intervene in this case, one of…
Content Type: Guide step
The information you (consciously or not) share with Facebook can be very revealing. It can also be (mis)interpreted by government agencies and used to profile individuals. Once installed on a device, depending on your settings, the Facebook app may have access to information such as your location, contact information and media stored on the same device. All of this data can be potentially be accessed remotely using cloud extraction technology.
Your Facebook app generates a lot of data that can…
Content Type: Press release
Today, following an in-depth investigation, the UK Competition and Market Authority (CMA) assessed that the competition concerns can only be addressed by Facebook selling Giphy in its entirety. This is a very significant decision. Facebook, the largest provider of social media sites and display advertising in the UK, acquired Giphy, the largest provider of GIFs. The merger would further increase Facebook’s dominance and Facebook would have benefitted from Giphy’s data collection practices and…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Photo by Emmanuel Olguín on UnsplashAfter many denials and much distraction, the truth is out. According to Facebook’s own internal research, Instagram is toxic to teen girls’ mental health. This week, the Wall Street Journal reported on a collection of internal Facebook documents which it says demonstrate how the platform is acutely aware of the harmful effects Instagram has on the mental health of teens. The Journal reported that Facebook’s own research showed that use of the image…
Content Type: Long Read
When you buy a brand-new low-cost phone, it’s likely to come pre-installed with insecure apps and an outdated operating system. What this means is that you or your loved ones could be left vulnerable to security risks or to having their data exploited. Privacy shouldn’t be a luxury. That’s why we advocate for companies to provide the latest security features and privacy protections for both low- and high-cost phones.
Content Type: Examples
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has filed a lawsuit in Hamburg against three AdTech industry trade bodies including the Interactive Avertising Bureau (IAB). Members of the IAB include big tech companies (Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter...), data brokers (Equifax, Experian, Acxiom...) and advertising agencies (Groupm, Publicis, IPG...).
The lawsuit follows the filing in 2018 of complaints with the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) and UK Information Commissioner (ICO), which…
Content Type: News & Analysis
On May 18th 2021 Google held its annual developer conference, Google I/O, where the company announces a number of innovations, products and software updates that will hit the market in the months to come. Among these announcements, the company introduced Android 12, its latest mobile Operating System (OS), that came with headline grabbing privacy features.
Possibly trying to catch up with Apple, which is positioning itself as a privacy-friendly tech company and gave the adtech industry a kick…
Content Type: Advocacy
Background
Giphy is a searchable database for Graphic Interchange Format (‘GIF’) files, stickers, emojis, text, videos and Arcade (remixable video games). This database can be queried through the Giphy search engine, either via its main website (giphy.com), its API or its SDK. Content obtained can then be shared via their URL or be integrated in another service such as a website or an app. Well known integrations of Giphy include messaging services like Whatsapp, Slack,…
Content Type: Advocacy
Esta carta también está disponible en inglés.
Estimados Sres. Zuckerberg y Pichai,
En los últimos años, ustedes han sido pioneros en la creación de importantes herramientas de transparencia para ayudar a los usuarios de su plataforma a entender, conocer y contextualizar la propaganda electoral a las cuales se ven expuestos. Estamos de acuerdo en que los procesos de verificación de anunciantes y los repositorios de anuncios son salvaguardas claves contra la manipulación y la desinformación en…
Content Type: Advocacy
This letter is also available in Spanish.
Dear Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Pichai,
In the past few years, you have pioneered important transparency tools to help your platform users understand, learn about and contextualise the political advertising they see. We agree that advertiser verification processes and ad repositories are key safeguards against online manipulation and misinformation. However, we are saddened to observe that these benefits have not been equally distributed among your global…
Content Type: Video
In recent years, the use of online political campaigning has gained significant traction, with regulatory bodies often struggling to catch up. The unregulated use of political ads can pose threats to transparency, and all the more so when online platforms fail to play their part.
We at PI, together with ELSAM, are investigating the reach, effectiveness and impact of regulation by social media platforms and electoral authorities on online political advertising. Our research has shown…
Content Type: Video
Nos últimos anos, o uso de campanhas políticas online ganhou força significativa, com os órgãos reguladores muitas vezes lutando para se atualizar. O uso não regulamentado da propaganda política pode representar ameaças à transparência, ainda mais quando as plataformas online deixam de cumprir a sua parte.
A PI, juntamente com o InternetLab, está investigando o alcance, a eficácia e o impacto da regulamentação por plataformas de mídia social e autoridades eleitorais na…
Content Type: Video
In recent years, the use of online political campaigning has gained significant traction, with regulatory bodies often struggling to catch up. The unregulated use of political ads can pose threats to transparency, and all the more so when online platforms fail to play their part.
We at PI, together with InternetLab, are investigating the reach, effectiveness and impact of regulation by social media platforms and electoral authorities on online political advertising. Our research has…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Over the past years, there has been much attention paid to political advertising transparency on online platforms. Growing internet penetration and the rising popularity of social media have made social media platforms a key battlefield for political actors in the fight for votes, where political ads have proved themselves to be a popular weapon. This means online transparency towards voters has become more imperative than ever.
And yet, social media platforms’ regulation of political ads…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Today, the European Commission has concluded its Phase II in-depth review of the proposed acquisition of the health and fitness tracker Fitbit by Google, deciding that the merger can go through. While we welcome the commitments put forward by Google to mitigate some risks of compromising individuals' rights and competition, PI considers the effects of this merger will further strengthen Google's capacity to exploit our data.
On 15 June 2020, Google formally notified the European Commission of…
Content Type: Examples
Civil society organisations Civil Liberties union for Europe, Open Rights Group and Panoptykon Foundation have filed complaints against Google and Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) member companies in Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Portugal and Romania.
The complaints address privacy abuses arising from real-time bidding processing, and call on data protection authorities to work together in investigation the real-time bidding industry.
Content Type: News & Analysis
Today, the CNIL announced fines of €100 million and €35 million for Gooogle and Amazon, respectively, for breaches of the French Data Protection Act.
The fines resulted from two separate investigations carried out by CNIL in relation to the use of cookies on the French websites of Google and Amazon.
The decision against Google
While it seems to be broadly stated that the CNIL fined Google €100 million, a more accurate statement is that the CNIL fined Google LLC (the parent company of Google’…
Content Type: Examples
French data protection regulator CNIL fined Google and Amazon €100 million and €35 million respectively for breaches of the French Data Protection Act. The CNIL found that the French websites of Google and Amazon had not sought the prior consent of visitors before advertising cookies were saved on computers, and failed to provide clear information to users as to how they intended to make use of online trackers and how to refuse any use of cookies.
In relation to Google, the CNIL made an…
Content Type: News & Analysis
On September 16, Google announced their intention to enforce a new "stalkerware" policy after a 15 day grace period ending on 1 October 2020.The policy change states that the Google Play Store will only host stalkerware apps that give "a persistent notification is displayed while the data is being transmitted."
In its announcement, Google defines stalkerware as "Code that transmits personal information off the device without adequate notice or consent and doesn't display a persistent…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Back in June, we published our investigation into Facebook brands, highlighting how Facebook failed to provide its users with a fair and meaningful understanding of how targeted advertising operated on its platform, and a number of issues preventing users from exercising their rights to the fullest possible extent. In face of the serious gaps encountered, we published an open letter to Facebook drawing attention to four main issues as well as our recommended actions to tackle them. This letter…
Content Type: Examples
A study describes the data transmitted to backend servers by the Google/Apple based contact tracing (GAEN) apps in use in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and Denmark and finds that the health authority client apps are generally well-behaved from a privacy point of view, although the Irish, Polish, Danish, and Latvian apps could be improved in this respect. However, the study also finds that the Google Play Services component of the apps contacts Google servers as often as every 20 minutes…
Content Type: Long Read
An edited version of this article was originally published on the EDRi website in September 2020.
Introduction
Monopolies, mergers and acquisitions, anti-trust laws. These may seem like tangential or irrelevant issues for privacy and digital rights organisations. But having run our first public petition opposing a big tech merger, we wanted to set out why we think this is an important frontier for people's rights across Europe and indeed across the world.
In June, Google notified the…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Back in January, Privacy International and over 50 other organisations wrote to Google asking the company to take action over pre-installed apps that cannot be deleted (often known as “bloatware”), which can leave users vulnerable to their data being collected, shared and exposed without their knowledge or consent. Thousands of people from over 50 countries signed our petition supporting this ask. We welcome the constructive conversations we had with Google following this campaign and for the…
Content Type: News & Analysis
No doubt this is turning out to be a summer full of news about internet companies' digital dominance.
In June, Google notified the European Commission of its plan to acquire Fitbit - a plan that we immediately identified would raise grave concerns for our well-being as consumers.
Today the European Commission has made its decision. And it's good news.
The European regulator has decided to undertake a detailed 'Phase 2' investigation, rather than just green light Google's plans, voicing also the…
Content Type: Advocacy
Introduction
In February 2020, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) commenced an investigation into the proposed acquisition of Fitbit by Google, which was originally announced in November 2019.
In March 2020, we made a submission to the ACCC, arguing that the acquisition would very likely have onerous implications for both consumers and markets. We asked the Australian regulator to apply strict scrutiny and not let hisory once again repeat itself. We concluded that the…
Content Type: Key Resources
Content Type: Video
When exposed to online political ads, individuals are usually - though not always - able to reliably identify the political actors behind the ad. However, there is little transparency in relation to the targeting mechanisms operating behind some of the ads - an users are rightly concerned.
Behind the social media curtain, political actors avail themselves of data collected through a range of sources to infer additional data about their voters. This…