PRIVACY: Beware “Protect” In Facebook’s iOS App.

In case you ever doubted Facebook’s commitment to hoovering up as much information about you as it can, the company has come under fire for a change in the Facebook app for iOS in the United States. In the last few days, users have discovered a new option when you tap the hamburger button to access your pages, shortcuts, and settings. In that screen is a section called Explore that lets you get to a vast number of Facebook services, such as On This Day, Crisis Response, Live Videos, Find Wi-Fi, and Device Requests. There are so many, in fact, that the last one is Show More, and tapping that displays another 11, including the reassuringly named Protect.

However, tapping Protect takes you to the App Store and displays an app called Onavo Protect — VPN Security. It is indeed a VPN — a virtual private network — that securely tunnels all your traffic through Onavo’s servers. The problem is that, as you might expect from the link source, Onavo is owned by Facebook. If you were to stumble on Onavo Protect in the App Store, you’d have to tap More and read the full description to discover that. If you read all the way to the end, you’d learn that Onavo Protect “directs all of your network communications through Onavo’s servers,” and that, “as part of this process, Onavo collects your mobile data traffic.”

And:

It’s bad enough when some unknown company provides a free VPN service in order to collect data about its users. It’s another thing when the company in question is part of Facebook, and that data can be combined with both any data you’ve allowed Facebook to have and any data about you that people you know have inadvertently provided to Facebook.

If you need a VPN, they’re inexpensive and not difficult to set up. Like any other “free” internet services, on a free VPN you are the product — and there’s nothing private about it.