Twitter is free, but the company needs to start making more money on the service. And you know what they say: if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.
In an update coming to Twitter for Android in the next couple weeks, the company has announced it will begin cataloging the apps you have installed on your phone to build a better-tailored advertising profile for its users. The good news is you don't have to let Twitter do this, but it is opt-out rather than opt-in.
According to Re/code, who spoke with Google, everything is already in place on Twitter for Android to be able to do this. Twitter just has to let users know they will be collecting the information, and it can't pull any info from the app itself — just that you have the app installed. If you do opt-out of the data collection, Twitter claims it will delete from its servers any information it has collected up to that point.
It's nice to see Twitter is being upfront about its information gathering policies, but by making app install tracking opt-out, you have to imagine a lot of unsuspecting people will be sending their information to Twitter without even knowing it. Of course if Twitter made it opt-in instead, no one would do it. Either way, we can't help but find the whole thing a little creepy.
Dustin Earley: Tech enthusiast; avid gamer; all around jolly guy.
Put the internet to work for you.
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