Protect feature on Facebook Monitor User Activity?

There is an increasingly connected expression to the internet world, the more possibilities for a user to monitor activity.

This is because the user's online activity is very valuable data for the company. The company certainly aims to understand the user's habits in order to create more targeted ads.

Unfortunately, in some cases, this user activity tracking feature was not publicly announced. Including those reported recently.

As quoted from Tech Crunch, Wednesday (2/14/2018), Facebook's mobile application turned out to have a feature "Protect" which allows it to track user activity while using Facebook.

Protect was initially called Onavo Protect, a VPN client that was acquired by Facebook in 2013. Now, Protect has become a separate feature that can be found in the Facebook Navigation menu. This Protect feature can be found on Facebook installed on iOS or Android.

In fact, Protect attempts to alert users to malicious websites and safely stores information like bank account and credit card numbers when users surf the internet. Even so, Facebook bought Onavo Protect not for security protection.

Instead of securing, it later became known that Protect is also monitoring user activity, so Facebook can get new trend information on the mobile ecosystem.

For example, Facebook can find out what apps are popular with users, see features of apps that seem to resonate users, and more.

This data has helped Facebook, for example in competing with Snapchat. For example, when Facebook released Stories feature similar to one of the features Snapchat.

Onavo itself currently has 33 million users both on iOS and Android. 62 percent are Android users, that's why Facebook presents Protect features in the application.

Onavo calls itself a part of Facebook and they claim, the service aims to improve Facebook products and services, as well as build a better user experience.

Unfortunately, it is unknown whether users know that Onavo provides their data and activity information on Facebook.

In his statement, the Facebook side confirmed, recently users in the US can access Onavo to protect Facebook applications on their IOS.

"Like other VPNs, Onavo Protect acts as a secure connection to protect people from potentially harmful sites.This app can collect mobile user data traffic to help Facebook recognize the tactics used by cyber criminals," said Product Manager Onavo Erez Naveth .