Web Of Trust (WOT) Browser Add-On Caught Selling Users

November 8, 2016 – 5:44 AM

Browser extensions have become a standard part of the most popular browsers and essential part of our lives for surfing the Internet.

But not all extensions can be trusted.

One such innocent looking browser add-on has been caught collecting browsing history of millions of users and selling them to third-parties for making money.

An investigation by German television channel NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk) has discovered a series of privacy breaches by Web Of Trust (WOT) – one of the top privacy and security browser extensions used by more than 140 Million online users to help keep them safe online.

Web of Trust has been offering a “Safe Web Search & Browsing” service since 2007. The WOT browser extension, which is available for both Firefox and Chrome, uses crowdsourcing to rate websites based on trustworthiness and child safety.

However, it turns out that the Web of Trust service collects extensive data about netizens’ web browsing habits via its browser add-on and then sells them off to various third party companies.

What’s extremely worrying? Web of Trust did not properly anonymize the data it collects on its users, which means it is easy to expose your real identity and every detail about you.

Source:
http://thehackernews.com/2016/11/web-of-trust-addon.html