Arkansas Lawyer Normal Tim Griffin made sweeping claims towards e-commerce app Temu in a lawsuit on Tuesday, accusing the corporate of violating state regulation towards misleading commerce practices.
“Temu purports to be a web based buying platform, however it’s harmful malware, surreptitiously granting itself entry to just about all knowledge on a consumer’s mobile phone,” Griffin alleges.
“Temu’s conduct got here to mild following the removing of the Pinduoduo app from Google’s Play Retailer because of the presence of malware that exploited vulnerabilities in customers’ cellphone working techniques and allowed the app not solely to achieve undetected entry to just about all knowledge saved on the telephones, but additionally to recompile itself and doubtlessly change its properties as soon as put in, in a fashion designed to keep away from detection,” the lawsuit claims, pointing to issues from Apple about Temu’s compliance with knowledge safety transparency requirements. Apple advised Politico final 12 months the app was out there on its app retailer after resolving the issues.
The lawsuit alleges that Temu’s app could also be much more harmful than Pinduoduo’s. It cites an article from Grizzly Analysis, a agency “targeted on producing differentiated analysis insights on publicly traded firms via in-depth due diligence.” The lawsuit cites findings within the report that “the Temu app has the aptitude to hack customers’ telephones and override knowledge privateness settings that customers have purposely set to forestall their knowledge from being accessed.”
The AG claims that Temu collects way more knowledge than essential to run a buying app, together with delicate or personally identifiable info. For instance, the go well with alleges that Temu misleads customers in its requests to entry info, similar to location, when importing a photograph. “An affordable shopper would assume that the placement permission is confined to the usage of photograph uploads. The permission, nevertheless, extends to any time the consumer engages with the Temu app,” the go well with claims. It additionally alleges that Temu “sneaks” permissions to entry audio and visible recording and storage on a tool.
Temu, Google, and Apple didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
