Facebook says these Chrome extensions steal your personal data — delete them now

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Facebook says these Chrome extensions steal your personal data — delete them now

(Epitome credit: TY Lim/Shutterstock)

Facebook is suing the maker of four Google Chrome browser extensions, claiming that the extensions "scraped," or harvested information from, Facebook user profiles, and also nerveless personal information not related to Facebook.

"If the user visited the Facebook website, the browser extensions were programmed to scrape their proper noun, user ID, gender, relationship status, age group and other information related to their account," Facebook said in an official post.

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That's a violation of Facebook's terms of service and of a Portuguese data-protection law. The lawsuit was filed in Portugal by both Facebook and its Ireland-based European subsidiary.

The extensions, which are still in the Chrome Web Store and still tin exist installed, are:

• Blue Messenger
• Emoji keyboard
• Green Messenger
• Web for Instagram plus DM

These extensions "were malicious and contained subconscious computer lawmaking that functioned like spyware," Facebook said.

It's not clear if the extensions are still scraping user data. Three of them were last updated in December, merely Emoji Keyboard hasn't been updated since July.

What yous demand to practise

Merely to exist safe, information technology might exist best to disable these extensions if you take any installed. Click the icon that looks like a puzzle piece at the summit correct of a desktop Chrome browser, and then scroll down to Manage Extensions. Run across if y'all have any of the above extensions installed and either toggle it off or remove information technology.

All four extensions are owned and operated past a company named Oink and Stuff, whose website says the company also makes extensions for the Microsoft Border, Mozilla Firefox and Opera browsers, plus Android apps.

The Chrome Web Store and Google Play Shop say Oink and Stuff is based in Myanmar, aka Burma, but Facebook'south lawsuit was filed against two individuals, whom Facebook doesn't name, in a Portuguese court.

Paul Wagenseil is a senior editor at Tom'due south Guide focused on security and privacy. He has as well been a dishwasher, fry cook, long-haul driver, code monkey and video editor. He's been rooting around in the information-security space for more than than 15 years at FoxNews.com, SecurityNewsDaily, TechNewsDaily and Tom's Guide, has presented talks at the ShmooCon, DerbyCon and BSides Las Vegas hacker conferences, shown up in random TV news spots and even moderated a panel discussion at the CEDIA habitation-technology conference. You lot tin can follow his rants on Twitter at @snd_wagenseil.

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/chrome-extensions-scrape-facebook-data

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