No, You Shouldn’t Let Facebook Pay You to Track Your Phone Habits Anyway.
Facebook wants to know as much as possible about you, if you will. The social giant launched a new app-based market research program this week called Study from Facebook . If you participate, you will be paid to run an app on your phone that keeps track of what other apps you have installed and how you use them.
While some details of the Facebook program have yet to be released, including the cost of your phone usage data, you probably should be mistaken about “not participating” if you see a pop-up announcement about research during your conversation. regular use of the Facebook application.
An Android app from marketing company Applause runs in the background and keeps track of what apps are installed on your device, how much time you spend using them, your location and device information, and “app activity” titles that may even reveal which ones. functions of the specific application you are using. Facebook specifically states that it does not record user credentials for your apps or content, and that the data it collects is not shared with advertisers, but the company’s reputation for privacy is not entirely flawless .
Facebook did not disclose how much it plans to pay for this information, but according to TechCrunch , it has given market research participants up to $ 20 a month in the past, plus bonuses for user referrals, according to TechCrunch .
Although the Facebook Study is a new program, it is also the latest chapter in a big saga that Facebook is turning to specialized applications for collecting user data beyond what it can get through its social media. Last year, reports showed that Facebook released several apps designed to track user data. The latest of these, an app called Facebook Research, sparked a fierce response from Facebook in January and led Apple to temporarily revoke the credentials of corporate developer Facebook, effectively ruining the workdays of countless Facebook employees.
Facebook would like you to believe that it has learned a lesson from Study, and to some extent, it got it: users have to subscribe to a new research project, and then they receive an invitation before they can use the app. This is for Android only, as we suspect Facebook doesn’t really have a way to get this information on iOS given Apple’s tighter control over which regular apps can be accessed (and how). Assuming that Study only tracks the information that Facebook claims, it is even less aggressive than Facebook’s Android VPN, Project Onovo .
However, Facebook has a controversial past about this sort of thing, and by signing up for Study you are ditching any privacy claims on your phone. Personally, I don’t think it’s worth it. Facebook already knows more about my life than I want to admit . And if cash hurts you so much, and $ 20 a month can really help your situation, there are other ways to get easy money that don’t involve telling Facebook about everything you do.
If you’re unsure, here’s what you need to know if you want to sign up. Study by Facebook is an invitation-only service, so you can’t just download the app and get started. On the Study from Facebook website, the company said it will send targeted ads to people who match the demographic they want to know about. (In the past, it has been widely targeted at young people, typically people between the ages of 18 and 35.) If you see an ad, click on it and sign up for the program. Facebook will send you an email with further instructions if it chooses you.