Meta and Yandex bypassed Android privacy to link anonymous web browsing to app users

A hot potato: For years, the privacy of Android users browsing the web has been quietly compromised by a sophisticated tracking method employed by two of the world's largest tech companies: Meta and Yandex. According to recent research, both companies have exploited legitimate browser-to-app communication protocols to covertly link anonymous web activity with the identities of users logged into native apps like Facebook, Instagram, and various Yandex services on Android devices. The research, extensively analyzed by Ars Technica, focuses on the widespread use of analytics scripts such as Meta Pixel and Yandex Metrica. These tools are embedded across millions of websites, ostensibly to help advertisers track campaign performance. However, behind the scenes, they enable a process that circumvents the privacy protections built into Android and major web browsers. At the core of the issue is the exploitation of Android's permissive local port communication. While Android's sandboxing and ... Read full article.