It sends anonymized data of every website on the internet, when you access it, and it also monitors the apps you use (probably because it intercepts their web traffic.) So basically Facebook knows what you do.
In all seriousness, that's not malware though. Facebook is a big company competing directly with Google: it makes sense that they want a similar level of access to market insights as their competitor has.
Google collects a lot of data [3], including app and website usage [2] too. They have full access all the analytics a phone OS can provide, after all.
I'm not saying this is ok, but if we claim this is malware then Android is malware too. I rather reserve the malware label to software that is directly designed to harm.
PS: Apple collects app usage too [1], but IMO they're at least more clear about it.
I agree with this sentiment. This is no more harmful than a web mail client that collections personal information for targeted ads, or a mobile operating system by an ads company. The best thing Google has is their marketing department.
If I've mistaken your question for pedantry, please forgive me.
You can narrowly define malware by a quick dictionary definition[1]:
> software that is intended to damage or disable computers and computer systems.
However, malware also has a much looser definition[2] if we don't restrict ourselves to a one sentence Google result:
> Programs officially supplied by companies can be considered malware if they secretly act against the interests of the computer user. For example, Sony sold the Sony rootkit, which contained a Trojan horse embedded into CDs that silently installed and concealed itself on purchasers' computers with the intention of preventing illicit copying. It also reported on users' listening habits, and unintentionally created vulnerabilities that were then exploited by unrelated malware.
It's shocking how far the overton window on privacy has shifted in just 10 years. Bonzi Buddy and it's ilk were generally considered malware and frequently chided on the internet at the time.
Now people defend almost the same practices (in a nicer package) on Hacker News.
Shocking right ? that the world always changing. I personally welcome this change. This one is different than pop up ads in the past where it actually annoy me.
