![]() ![]() Check out the app's entry on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. Search for information about your weather app of choice. We hate to tell you to ditch it, but you should give serious consideration to doing so if it doesn't pass a basic privacy audit. You probably have an app already installed on your phone. Give Your Current App a Privacy Audit (And Be Prepared to Ditch It) While we'll suggest some great privacy-centered weather apps in the next section, let's talk about best practices and considerations first. Where does that leave you, the end user who just wants to know if it's going to rain today or if the pollen count is high enough, you might consider taking extra allergy medicine or wearing a mask while walking the dog? So there are clearly serious concerns about data privacy and weather apps. They later settled out of court but kept up with the user tracking and data sales, just with an updated privacy policy. The company was sued on the grounds that the app was collecting and selling user data in a way that was not clearly disclosed to the users and a violation of their privacy. In 2019, it was the Weather Channel app's turn in the hotseat. Notable to our discussion here about weather apps, the popular weather app WeatherBug was found to be sharing user's precise location data with 40 different companies. In 2018, the New York Times tested many popular apps and tracked their data collection and distribution patterns. In the fallout, AccuWeather claimed they had no idea about the issue and blamed a service they were partnered with, but given that the CEO of AccuWeather had a long history of lobbying to restrict the National Weather Service to gain a competitive edge, it's understandable people took the claim with a grain of salt. ![]() ![]() In 2017, AccuWeather made the news when a security researcher discovered the app was tracking and sharing user data (even when the user had opted out). ![]()
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