The original headline from the Electronic Freedom Foundation was:

Ring Doorbell App Packed with Third-Party Trackers

To me, that gave the appearance that the iOS app was packed with trackers. But the article itself doesn’t have a single mention of Apple or iOS, makes it clear the issue is with the Android app. Just wanted to call that out.

On to the article itself:

An investigation by EFF of the Ring doorbell app for Android found it to be packed with third-party trackers sending out a plethora of customers’ personally identifiable information (PII). Four main analytics and marketing companies were discovered to be receiving information such as the names, private IP addresses, mobile network carriers, persistent identifiers, and sensor data on the devices of paying customers.

The issue is not that the danger of your doorbell video or statistics being leaked, but that the trackers can be used to connect your IP address and other identifying info to other devices, building an on-line profile showing where you live and what other on-line information is linked to you.

This cohesive whole represents a fingerprint that follows the user as they interact with other apps and use their device, in essence providing trackers the ability to spy on what a user is doing in their digital lives and when they are doing it.

I hate this behavior. I love the idea of a video doorbell, but I continue to wait for one that is devoid of trackers, truly anonymized.