• Your mobile browsing history is under constant surveillance. Nearly half (45%) of top Android and iOS apps collect browsing history. We analyzed 40 leading apps across four categories: generative AI, social media, e-commerce, and messaging. We found that 18 collect information about the websites you visit. With this practice so widespread, multiple apps on your phone could be monitoring your web activity right now.
• Browsing history collection is most common among social media apps, with 9 out of 10 collecting this data on at least one platform. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, and Pinterest collected it on both Android and iOS, while Reddit, LinkedIn, and Snapchat collected it only on Android. Discord was the only social media app that did not collect browsing history on either platform. This data helps platforms build a clearer picture of your interests, target you with highly specific ads, and shape the content in your feed based on websites you visit outside the app.
• Shopping apps are also hungry for your browsing data. Half of the e-commerce apps we analyzed collected browsing history on at least one platform. eBay, Shopee, and Shopify collected it on both Android and iOS, while Taobao collected it only on iOS, and AliExpress only on Android. The commercial value is clear: the more these apps know about your online interests, the more effectively they can recommend and advertise products to you. The cost is that your browsing habits become increasingly difficult to keep private.
• Even messaging and generative AI apps want to know which websites you visit. Three messaging apps collected this data: Rakuten Viber, Messenger, and LINE. Their parent companies can use it to build more detailed profiles of users and their interests. Collection was less common in the generative AI category, where Google Gemini was the only app to collect browsing history.