Facebook introduces app that pays users in exchange for their data

last updated 12 June 2019

Facebook is looking for information on how people use apps, and they're willing to pay for it.

The tech giant launched a new app in the United States and India on Tuesday, called Study. The app tracks how a person uses other apps, noting how long they are on them and any features they open. Facebook said it isn't looking at web searches, photos, or account IDs and passwords. The company did not say how much it is paying users who install the app.

Facebook previously tried tracking users — without paying them — through the Research and Onavo Protect apps. Both of these apps were shut down after Apple said they violated the App Store's privacy guidelines. Study is only available on the Google Play Store, and Facebook said this app was made in-house and is different from the earlier iterations. "It's a lot of competitive intelligence, but a little less spying on the users," Lance Cottrell, chief scientist at cybersecurity firm Ntrepid, told The Associated Press.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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