A big user of Leboncoin for making purchases and sales on the second-hand market, what was my surprise a few days ago when I noticed a rather surprising specificity of the French platform. This, by default,has access to all exchanges in your messaging, with here the idea of improving your “user experience”. By this I mean being able to offer youadvertisements better suited to your profileand therefore, ultimately, earn more money on your back (simply put).
At no time did I suspect such a practice. Perhaps I made the mistake (like many other users of the platform no doubt), of not taking an interest in the conditions of use earlier when creating my account several years ago. years ago... Still, I would have liked to at least have been kept informed of the matter. Fortunately, there is aoption to deactivate this monitoring for profiling purposes, both in the Leboncoin iOS app and on the web version of the platform.
How to stop the analysis of private messages at Leboncoin
In the Leboncoin iOS application (available for free on App Store) :
- Go to the “My Account” page
- Look for the “Messaging” section in the “Settings” paragraph
- There you have the Correspondence Analysis option which is normally activated if you have never touched it. You can turn off the switch
© Capture of the Leboncoin iOS app by iPhon.fr
Without using the iOS app:
- Go to your account settings by clicking on the profile icon at the top right of the Leboncoin.fr web page
- Go to “Settings”
- Find the “Messaging” paragraph and the “Correspondence Analysis” option
© Capture of the Leboncoin site by iPhon.fr
Once the option in question is deactivated, Leboncoinno longer normally analyzes your exchanges with other sellers and buyers.
Note that in the app, still in the settings, Email section, you can deactivate “Commercial canvassing” to avoid being contacted by professionals by email, to gain even more confidentiality.
© Capture of the Leboncoin iOS app by iPhon.fr
Leboncoin, I like you, but still…
After realizing that this messaging monitoring was activated by default, I investigated theprivacy labelsof the app on iOS. These labels have been displayed on the App Store page of any app for a few years now and allow you to know what personal data developers have access to and for what purpose. If some applications have almost empty confidentiality labels, this is far from being the case for Leboncoin…
According to the App Store privacy labels, the Leboncoin app has access to this information to track your behavior in other apps and on other websites:
- Purchase history
- User Content (photos, videos, customer support, “other user content”
- User location (precise or approximate)
- Search history
- Credentials (user and device)
- Usage data (product interactions and advertising data)
- Diagnostic
In addition, we learn that the app can link the following data to your identity, for marketing purposes:
- Purchase history
- Contact details (physical address, email, name and telephone)
- User Content
© Capture of the Leboncoin iOS app by iPhon.fr
How to gain confidentiality with Leboncoin
We can be concerned about these rather invasive practices for the privacy of users of the platform. If you ever want to limit the sharing of your personal information, you can act in several ways:
- Avoid using the Leboncoin application and prefer to go to the siteLeboncoin.fr from a browser in private mode, as Safari offers
- Disable the two options indicated above,Correspondence analysisetCommercial canvassing
- Don't go backyour real personal information (last name, first name, date of birth, address, profession, center of interest)
- Use a “hidden” email addressfor your account, as offered by Apple with the “Hide my email” function, or even Firefox with Relay and services like SimpleLogin.io or Addy.io
Leboncoin is one of thereferencesin terms of buying and selling for the second-hand market in France, this is why it seems difficult to us to stop using it. Despite everything, and precisely in view of its success in France, it seemed important to us to take stock of its uses of its users' data.
And you, did you know before reading this article that Leboncoin could analyze your messages?
Editor-in-chief for iPhon.fr. Pierre is like Indiana Jones, looking for the lost iOS trick. Also a long-time Mac user, Apple devices hold no secrets for him. Contact: pierre[a]iphon.fr.
