E-commerce giant Amazon has officially put a temporary ban on the sale of all of Blu smartphones after the devices were reported to have been loaded with spyware, which could apparently send data of the user's servers in China, CNET reported. The Jeff Bezos-led company has made an official statement regarding the matter, by suggesting that the company won’t be putting the smartphones back on sale until the issue has been resolved completely.
They cited privacy concerns of its consumers.
After the announcement, Android headlines reported that BLU released a statement, suggesting that their smartphones do not have software that is meant to spy on consumers. In fact, Adups – the app that is believed to be spying on its users, is well within the company’s policy guidelines. However, the company also added that they will be clarifying the misunderstanding soon enough.
Ban might be temporary
As reported by CNET, Amazon is expected to lift the temporary ban soon enough. The company is believed to not want to take any risks regarding the matter, as they do not want their consumers to have any sort of privacy issues with products sold through their platform.
Spying through digital means is a big problem online at the moment and it is quite natural for Amazon to want to stay away from any such problems.
The news regarding BLU phones being integrated with spying software first emerged online late last year when researchers from cybersecurity firm, Kryptowire claimed that they had discovered Adups app found on BLU Grand M and Blu Advance 5.0 smartphones were spying on user’s information.
Offers and discounts
Amazon’s decision to stop the sale of BLU smartphones is definitely going to give rise to several issues being faced by the company, as most of its sales have taken place through online platforms. In fact, Amazon’s special Prime offers and discounts have also provided a great boost to BLU smartphones – which may prevent the revenue from flowing in for BLU in general.
Amazon hasn’t provided any details regarding when they plan on lifting the ban, but the experts feel that it won’t be long before they decide to do so.
Quoting an updated statement by BLU, Toms Hardware wrote, "Amazon has been aware of the Adups and other applications on our BLU devices which were deemed at the time by BLU, Amazon, and Kryptowire to pose no further security or privacy risk. Now almost a year later, the devices are still behaving in the same exact way, with standard and basic data collection that pose no security or privacy risk. "