AccuWeather deflects blame after selling users’ data, even if they opt out
AccuWeather doesn’t know how to issue a reassuring statement. The company attempted to quell users’ concerns a day after security analyst Will Strafach published a blog post earlier this week explaining how the free iOS weather app collects users’ GPS coordinates, the name and BSSID (or MAC address) of their Wi-Fi router, and whether their device has Bluetooth turned on or off. AccuWeather sends this data to a company called Reveal Mobile, which sells the information to retailers with the promise of helping “understand the path of a consumer and where they go throughout the day.”
To put it more plainly: AccuWeather basically handed over its users exact locations —even when they opted out of providing location data — in the form of their…
