Glassbox is an Israeli software company. It sells

session-replay Session replay is the ability to replay a visitor's journey on a web site or within a mobile application or web application. Replay can include the user's view (browser or screen output), user input (keyboard and mouse inputs), and logs of netwo ...

analytics software and services.

History

As of October 2018, Glassbox had raised US$32.5 million of capital funding. In exchange for investing in Glassbox, Washington, DC, equity firm Updata Partners was given two Glassbox board seats. In April 2020, Glassbox raised US$40 million in

series C A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among the ...

funding. In October 2020, Glassbox acquired its rival SessionCam.

Privacy concerns

From at least as early as October 2018, Glassbox promoted its software as allowing its customers' websites or mobile apps to "see exactly what your customers do in real time". This prompted some

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

users to express privacy concerns about Glassbox's software. In February 2019, ''

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...

'' reported that numerous popular applications in Apple's

iOS App Store The App Store is an app store platform, developed and maintained by Apple Inc., for mobile apps on its iOS and iPadOS operating systems. The store allows users to browse and download approved apps developed within Apple's iOS Software Deve ...

used Glassbox software to record users' activities without the users' informed consent, which compromised users' privacy and contravened the rules of the iOS App Store. The affected apps included ones published by

Abercrombie & Fitch Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) is an American lifestyle retailer that focuses on casual wear. Its headquarters are in New Albany, Ohio. The company operates three other offshoot brands: Abercrombie Kids, Hollister Co., and Gilly Hicks. As of Februar ...

Air Canada Air Canada is the flag carrier and the largest airline of Canada by the size and passengers carried. Air Canada maintains its headquarters in the borough of Saint-Laurent, Montreal, Quebec. The airline, founded in 1937, provides scheduled and ...

Expedia Expedia Inc. is an online travel agency owned by Expedia Group, an American online travel shopping company based in Seattle. The website and mobile app can be used to book airline tickets, hotel reservations, car rentals, cruise ships, and vacat ...

, Hollister,

Hotels.com Hotels.com is a website for booking hotel rooms online and by telephone. The company has 85 websites in 34 languages, and lists over 325,000 hotels in approximately 19,000 locations. Its inventory includes hotels and B&Bs, and some condos and oth ...

, and

Singapore Airlines Singapore Airlines (abbreviation: SIA) is the flag carrier airline of the Republic of Singapore with its Airline hub, hub located at Singapore Changi Airport. The airline is notable for highlighting the Singapore Girl as its central figure in ...

. In response,

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

told app developers that if they continued to flout the rules of the iOS App Store, their apps would be removed from it. However, it was not clear whether Apple's request was heeded. Following ''TechCrunchs investigation, security researchers from Symantec's enterprise mobile threat division found 277 iOS apps and 291 Android apps that employed Glassbox software, including a number of banking and credit card apps, "putting a user's financial information at risk of exposure". Google, whose

Play Store Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating syst ...

is the Android counterpart of the iOS App Store, did not comment on whether it would expect Android app developers to remove session-replay functionality. Anti-malware company

Avast Avast Software s.r.o. is a Czech Multinational corporation, multinational Computer security, cybersecurity software company headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic that Research and development, researches and develops computer security softwa ...

observed that using session-replay analytics "without even mentioning it is not right, and probably illegal in some countries." Computer science professor Thomas Keenan, author of the book ''

Technocreep ''Technocreep: The Surrender of Privacy and the Capitalization of Intimacy'' is a 2014 book by Thomas P. Keenan, an adjunct professor of computer science at the University of Calgary. The book includes tips about how to increase one's personal p ...

'', suggested that people who do not want a company to record their data like this should delete the app concerned. ''IT Pro'' reported that Glassbox retains session, demographic, and location data for up to 24 months, categorizing it by age, gender, and interests, and may combine it with other information obtained from other companies.

References

{{Reflist 2019 in computing Companies based in Petah Tikva Digital marketing companies of Israel Israeli companies established in 2010 Mobile software Privacy controversies and disputes Privately held companies of Israel Spyware