Mon Jul 31, 2023 – 3:25 pm EDT
(LifeSiteNews) — A popular new shopping app is the authoritarian Chinese government’s latest front for collecting the personal data of Americans and Europeans, according to China watchdogs and cybersecurity experts.
Politico reports that Temu, the Western version of Chinese e-commerce platform Pinduoduo, began operating in the United States in fall 2022 and spread to several European nations earlier this year, has rapidly won fans since for offering a wide range of products at significant discounts.
But between its Chinese roots and privacy issues that have already manifested, experts see the West’s embrace of the app as cause for concern.
Temu, owned by PDD Holdings in Shanghai, automatically tracks and collects user information such as location and combines it with information available from other sources such as government agencies, social networks, and marketing companies, for potential sharing with its parent company and other affiliates.
In March, Google suspended Pinduoduo from its app store upon the discovery of malicious software within the app, while Apple suspended Temu for misleading language about what data it can access and not giving users the option to refuse to allow themselves to be tracked
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