The Max messenger has begun collecting data on which channels and content users view...

The Max messenger has begun collecting data on which channels and content users view

The Max messenger has begun collecting data on which channels and content its users view; Verstka noticed the corresponding change in the messenger’s privacy policy.

The policy was updated on September 25 — in section 2.1 on data processing, subparagraph number 9 appeared: “Other information about the user’s use of the service, including information about interaction with channels and content (including subscribing to and unsubscribing from channels).”

It is noted that this is done “to ensure the personalization of informational, entertainment, and advertising content posted in the service, and to improve the user’s experience of interacting with such content.” The previous version, dated May 18 of this year, did not contain such a clause.

Leonid Yuldashev, Russian-language project coordinator at eQualitie, told Verstka that any messengers and similar services “know” what people do inside them.

“But the difference between Telegram and Max is that Max complies with the requirements for organizers of information dissemination in the Russian Federation, meaning it passes data to the FSB, while Telegram does not. Facebook, meanwhile, passes it to a different police force, but only a little and upon request,” Yuldashev explains.

Dmitry Kuteinikov, a lawyer at RKS. Global and an AI Governance researcher, told Verstka that in the case of Max the user has no right to opt out of personalization, unlike under rules established, for example, in the European Union. “In the EU, it [the new wording in Max’s policy] could not be legal at all,” the expert says.

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