Blu smartphones pulled from Amazon over privacy woes

Update, 3 August 2017: Blu has since responded to the research, saying that it wasn’t collecting anything out of the ordinary. It also lambasted “false” reports around the situation.

Original article: Blu is one of the most popular budget brands in North America, serving up capable smartphones at competitive prices. In fact, these devices regularly feature in Amazon’s top charts.

Now, Amazon has confirmed that it has suspended sales of the range, over a security/privacy issue.

“We recently learned of a potential security issue on select Blu phones, some of which are sold on Amazon.com,” the retailer told Gearburn in a statement.

“Because security and privacy of our customers is of the utmost importance, all Blu phone models have been made unavailable for purchase on Amazon.com until the issue is resolved.”

The actual issue wasn’t disclosed by Amazon, but security researchers revealed last week that data was being sent to servers in China without alerting users.

According to CNET, software called Adups was responsible for the issue, with claims coming as early as November 2016.