{"id":1244774,"date":"2022-01-26T19:37:34","date_gmt":"2022-01-27T00:37:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1244774"},"modified":"2022-01-26T19:37:39","modified_gmt":"2022-01-27T00:37:39","slug":"christian-prayer-apps-secretly-mine-users-data-sell-it-to-big-tech-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/christian-prayer-apps-secretly-mine-users-data-sell-it-to-big-tech-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Prayer Apps Secretly Mine Users\u2019 Data, Sell It To Big Tech: Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fchristian-prayer-apps-secretly-mine-users-data-sell-it-to-big-tech-report%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1244774&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>A number of popular Christian prayer and devotional apps are secretly mining data on their users and selling that information to Big Tech companies, according to a new report.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.buzzfeednews.com\/article\/emilybakerwhite\/apps-selling-your-prayers\">BuzzFeed<\/a> reported Monday that several prayer apps and websites, such as Pray.com, Hallow, Glorify, and Bible Gateway, have been secretly data mining their users\u2019 activity on the site and sharing that data with a number of Big Tech corporations that traffic in data, including Facebook.<\/p>\n<p>The first app Buzzfeed investigated, Pray.com, allegedly collects data on their users in a number of ways: it can track their physical location, the links they click on, and even the text of the things they post on the site. The site then supplements that information with additional info like age, race, ethnicity, gender, religion, marital status, income, household size, political affiliation, and interests taken from \u201cthird-parties such as data analytics providers and data brokers,\u201d according to the report.&nbsp;The app then reportedly shares that information with third parties, including \u201cadvertising, sale and marketing tools\u201d for \u201ccommercial purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just have no idea why they would need that,\u201d said \u201cKatie,\u201d a user of the app interviewed by Buzzfeed. Sharing prayers comes with \u201can expectation of privacy,\u201d said \u201cJenny,\u201d another user. \u201cSarah,\u201d another user, said that it would be \u201cexploitative,\u201d \u201cmanipulative,\u201d and \u201cpredatory\u201d if Pray.com used people\u2019s prayers to sell products.<\/p>\n<p>Pray.com didn\u2019t previously mention the supplemental information bought from data brokers in its privacy policy, but the app updated its privacy to include that language in late December after an inquiry from Buzzfeed. A spokesman for Pray.com refused to say from which data brokers it had purchased data, and to which third parties it has given that data. The spokesman also denied allegations about its purported relationship with Facebook specifically, saying that the company \u201cis not in the business of renting or selling data.\u201d Facebook representatives told Buzzfeed they are investigating the situation.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the company\u2019s denial, an independent audit conducted by privacy researcher Zach Edwards reportedly found that the app&nbsp;<em>did,&nbsp;<\/em>in fact, collect granular data on the content users consumed, and shared it with several companies, including Facebook. This means that Facebook can use that data to target them with ads. Edwards also allegedly found that data on the content he viewed was shared with Facebook, as well as two other companies, LeadsRX and Branch.io. These companies, called \u201cattribution vendors,\u201d allow the app to track whether their content led to users making purchases. \u201cThe Pray privacy policy, combined with the aggressive attribution vendors they partner with, creates a perfect storm to build deeply invasive profiles of religious voters,\u201d Edwards told Buzzfeed, adding that this data could be shared with Facebook, Google, and other tech giants to sell targeted ads.<\/p>\n<p>Other devotional apps such as Hallow and Glorify reportedly have similar policies allowing them to share data with their partners for advertising purposes, and giving them \u201csole discretion\u201d about when to share that information with outside parties \u2014 but representatives for both apps told Buzzfeed that they had not done so. Bible Gateway, which is owned by News Corporation, has allegedly been sharing its users\u2019 information using a proprietary advertising system called NewsIQ, which infers users\u2019 \u201cpreferences, opinions and emotions\u201d based on their activity on other sites owned by News Corp.<\/p>\n<p>Buzzfeed\u2019s report comes as multiple states are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/bipartisan-ags-suing-google-alleging-deceptive-practices-tracking-users-without-consent\">suing Google<\/a> over allegations that it used deceptive practices to track users\u2019 location to sell targeted ads without their permission. The Daily Wire previously reported that Washington state, Indiana, Texas, and Washington, D.C., have each filed lawsuits alleging that many of Google\u2019s apps can track a user\u2019s location, even when they have disabled the location feature on their Google accounts.<\/p>\n<p>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\">member<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A number of popular Christian prayer and devotional apps are secretly mining data on their users and selling that information to Big Tech companies, according to a new report. BuzzFeed reported Monday that several prayer apps and websites, such as Pray.com, Hallow, Glorify, and Bible Gateway, have been secretly data mining their users\u2019 activity on &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1244774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1244774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1244774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1244774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1244774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1244774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}