We’re not going to lecture you, if you want to download, do it. We’ll talk another day about the economy behind mobile apps and games, and especially the independents and other studios that make a living from it. If we advise you to avoid downloading pirated apps anywhere, it is simply because they very often contain malicious code.
How to install an APK file on an Android smartphone or tablet?
Overall, avoid downloading APKs outside of the Play Store and from an external source unless you are completely certain of the origin of the file. Indeed, these files can be corrupted. However, if you don’t want or can’t go through the Google store, take a look at our list of the best alternatives to the Play Store .
The advice is the same for macOS and Windows 10: avoid downloading programs or games from unknown sources . For iOS and iPadOS, Apple has locked down its system more, it is very difficult to do without the App Store to download an application.
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GOOGLE ANALYTICS DATA SENT TO THE UNITED STATES
But what exactly are we talking about here? The Cnil refers here to the data collected by Google Analytics. However, this information is transmitted to servers in the United States of the Mountain View giant. There is therefore a transfer that takes place from France to the country of Uncle Sam and it is precisely this operation that the organization points the finger at.
The Cnil specifies that it has carried out an investigation with other European regulators. The goal: “ to analyze the conditions under which the data collected as part of the use of Google Analytics was transferred to the United States and what were the risks incurred for the persons concerned ”.
NOT GDPR COMPLIANT
However, the CNIL concluded that the transfer of information to the United States was not sufficiently supervised for the moment. At least, not until Washington aligns its privacy policy with European GDPR requirements. In other words, the authority explains that if there are not enough guarantees, there should be no data transfers from France to the United States.
And on the guarantees side, the CNIL was not satisfied.
Indeed, if Google has adopted additional measures to regulate data transfers within the framework of the Google Analytics functionality, these are not sufficient to exclude the possibility of access by American intelligence services to this data.
You will have understood: the Cnil fears that the data aggregated by Google Analytics will be too exposed to the eyes of the American intelligence agencies which could be too interested in your habits on the web. To support its point, the organization recalls that the audience measurement tool assigns each visitor to a website a unique identifier and that this identifier “ constitutes personal data ” which should not be found in the United States . .
We do not know who exactly (natural or legal person) was given formal notice by the CNIL. However, the authority told AFP – taken over by BFM – that two other French site managers are also the subject of complaints.
Note also that the Cnil conducted this investigation after being seized by the Austrian association NOYB ( None of Your Business ) which campaigns for better protection of private data on the Internet.
The site manager given formal notice now has one month to comply. But beyond this publisher, the CNIL’s conclusions could subsequently affect hundreds of thousands (millions?) of platforms, media and services on the web. Google Analytics is really used by a multitude of sites.
