Arkansas Lawyer Common Tim Griffin filed sweeping expenses in opposition to e-commerce app Temu in a lawsuit on Tuesday, accusing the corporate of violating state legal guidelines in opposition to misleading commerce practices.
“Temu claims to be an internet purchasing platform, however it’s harmful malware that secretly permits itself to entry practically all information on customers’ telephones,” Griffin claimed.
“Temu’s actions got here to mild after the Pinduoduo app was faraway from the Google Play Retailer as a result of presence of malware that exploited vulnerabilities in customers’ cellular working techniques, not solely permitting the app to entry storage with out detection “considerably all information on the telephone, and likewise recompiles itself and will change its properties after set up in a fashion designed to keep away from detection,” the lawsuit says, noting Apple’s issues about Temu’s compliance with information safety transparency requirements. Apple tells Politico Final yr, after these points had been resolved, the app grew to become accessible on its app retailer.
The lawsuit claims Temu’s app could also be extra harmful than Pinduoduo’s. It cites an article from Grizzly Analysis, an organization “centered on offering differentiated analysis insights into public firms by in-depth due diligence.” The lawsuit cites the report’s findings that “Temu apps have the flexibility to hack customers’ telephones and override information privateness settings that customers have deliberately set to forestall their information from being accessed.”
AG claims Temu collects way more information than is required to run the purchasing app, together with delicate or personally identifiable data. For instance, the lawsuit alleges that Temu misled customers when it requested entry to data akin to location when importing photographs. “An affordable shopper would assume that location permissions are restricted to picture importing. Nonetheless, the permission applies to any time the consumer makes use of the Temu app. It additionally claims that Temu “surreptitiously” accesses audio and video recording and storage on the gadget permission.
Temu, Google and Apple didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
