A new ultra-cheap Chinese shopping app taking Britain by storm could be illegally harvesting the data of phone users, claims a report.
Temu, pronounced tee-moo, offers shoppers cut-price products shipped directly from Chinese factories. It launched in the UK in April and has surged in popularity, becoming the most-downloaded app on Google’s Play Store following similar success in the US.
Distinguished by its bright orange logo, Temu is thought to have more than nine million users in the UK who have been drawn in by its ultra-low prices and free delivery.
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But alarm bells are ringing among analysts and observers of Chinese companies.
This month, financial analyst Siegfried Eggert, the boss of US firm Grizzly Research, published a report claiming Temu was one of the ‘most dangerous’ popular apps, alleging it contained ‘aggressive’ programmes designed to harvest data.
Eggert also accused Temu’s owner, Chinese e-commerce giant PDD, of ‘intentionally’ hiding the software within the app.
‘We Believe Temu is the most dangerous app in wide circulation,’ the report said.
Anecdotal, but after I installed temu, someone repeatedly tried to access my Facebook account. Every hour I’d get a password reset request. Had them happening for 3 days straight. Thought about what I’d recently installed and it was only Temu. Uninstalled and the attempts stopped immediately.