A report on Android apps that do location tracking identified 450 apps that use tracker SDKs, many of which use an SDK called X-Mode, which Apple and Google have banned, but are still in Google's Play Store.
X-Mode, based in Reston, Virginia in the US, is a broker for location data. The pitch to developers is that by embedding the X-Mode libraries in their apps, they get a revenue stream that is not dependent on showing ads. “You can earn $10K or more a month by contributing to our Premium Location Data Platform,” its website boasts.
That data is then licensed to third parties with X-Mode claiming to cover more than 25 per cent of the US adult population and up to 10 per cent in 11 other countries including the UK, Canada, Australia, Spain, Italy and France.
Use cases presented on X-Mode's site include validating whether a cu ..
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