US smartphone maker Blu has said that it’s addressed user privacy issues caused by Adups software that was silently sending personal information about users of certain Blu devices back to a server in China.
While the original issue was raised by security company Kryptowire last month and Blu swiftly disabled the offending software components, the company says it’s also going to roll out updates that will fully remove the Adups software from its handsets. For clarity, the software was officially installed on the devices, but was using features that Blu says it specifically declined, and it didn’t affect all its phones.
As a result of the privacy snafu, it’s switching to the official Google updater service instead of Adups and alll new models being sold from this month onwards will no longer come with Adups pre-installed, according to comments given to PCMag by Blu’s CEO Sammy Ohev-Zion.
Ohev-Zion also said that the scare has also taught the company a tough lesson about being fully in control of the services that go on its phones and that it will “not install third-party applications where we don’t have the source code and don’t understand the behaviour”. Just for good measure, Blu’s also retained the services of Kryptowire to make sure the problem doesn’t happen again.
It’s not great timing for the company, just as it officially launched its first handset for the UK market, but with a swift and decisive response, damage to the brand has probably been contained as best it could have been. That, of course, probably doesn’t feel very comforting for people whose data was transmitted.
Related: Blu brings its Vivo 6 to UK as first official handset
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.