14 DAY TRIAL // If you own an Android handset, then it’s highly likely that you used an ad-sponsored Android app at some moment in time. At which point, you probably wondered where all those ads were coming from and if you should be worried about them.
As it turns out, you might have a reason to be a little suspicious. French researchers have identified a way that allows them to automatically scan Android apps and reveal whether they are “secretly” able to connect to advertising and user tracking sites (as seen at MIT Technology Review).
If we're to jump to conclusions, the results show a worrisome estimate. More than 2,000 free Google Play apps were shown to be connected to a whopping 250,000 sites spread over 2,000 domains. Out of the apps tested, most communicate with a small selection of sites (with Google’s ad services being the king on the throne). However, 10% of them connect to 500 or more websites.
One app in particular broke the record and connected to more than 2,000 websites on its own. Just 30% of the apps included in the study got linked to user tracking sites, which were communicating with 800 or more addresses.
The repercussions for your phone might not be all that bad
If you’re already fretting about these results, you should stop and breathe for a second. It turns out that the danger for your phone and the files stored inside isn't as bad as you might think. The study found that most of the apps didn't secretly communicate with suspicious sites and many were property of Google’s partners.
We should also mention that the researchers used a phone which ran the pretty outdated Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. It’s unclear why the French team didn't choose to run the experiment using an Android 5.0 Lollipop device. Google’s latest OS version does put an emphasis on security, so the results would probably have been a lot better.
Still, it’s pretty obvious to us that free apps will connect to other websites behind your back, and as an Android device owner, you have no way of knowing which they are and how to stop this from happening. Naturally, it doesn't mean you should completely abstain from using ad-backed apps, but you might want to go easy on cluttering your phone with them.