Snowden calls Allo “Google Surveillance” and says you shouldn’t use it
Google’s recently released Allo messenger has been the subject of quite a bit of backlash online, but whistleblower Edward Snowden believes you shouldn’t be using the service anyway.
He tweeted a story from The Verge that shows how Google went back on its privacy promises for Allo that were first discussed at Google I/O this year. Google originally promised that Allo would store messages transiently instead of indefinitely in a log. Now, all non-incognito messages are stored by default and records last until the user actively deletes them.
End-to-end encrypted Incognito released intact and no messages sent while in that mode are logged. Still, that’s not enough for Snowden. In his tweet, he refers to Allo as Google Surveillance and implores the citizens of the world, “Don’t use Allo.”
Free for download today: Google Mail, Google Maps, and Google Surveillance. That's #Allo. Don't use Allo. https://t.co/EdPRC0G7Py
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 21, 2016