14 DAY TRIAL // The Most Used Words quiz game on Facebook and its creator, a company called Vonvon, are being accused of collecting personal user details, which they plan to sell to online advertisers.
The accusation was made by Comparitech, a technology review website, which, unlike any of us, took the time to read the app's Privacy Policy and discovered many disturbing issues.
Most Used Words quiz collects Facebook profile details
In its default settings, the app asks its users to give it full access to their profile. All permissions besides "access to Facebook posts" can be turned off and allow the app to work normally, but very few people know this, and very few limit the app's reach.
With access to almost all the user's details, the app's policy allows it to make copies of all the data and then store it on remote servers.
Even worse, there are passages in the license that also enable the company to share the data with third-parties (usually online advertisers), and then wash their hands of all what happened.
The shady privacy policy should have been a warning to users, but nobody reads it anyway
"We do not share your Personal Information with third parties unless we have received your permission to do so, or given you notice thereof (such as by telling you about it in this Privacy Policy)," reads the shadiest portion of the Most Used Words policy.
Vonvon's CEO responded to Comparitech's accusations by saying that the Privacy Policy does indeed allow them to do this, but that his company had never acted on these privileges.
"As we do not store any personal information, we have nothing to sell. Period," points out Jonghwa Kim, Vonvon CEO.
Mr. Kim claims that all the data is collected only to generate the app's results, the word cloud image. He did not explain why the app required so many profile details by default, but the company adjusted the settings to only require the bare minimum.
At the time of this article, the app can still be found on Facebook.