“Brand-Jackers” Use Kids Brands to Collect Revenue and Private Data

The Wall Street Journal released a report last Thursday detailing mobile apps that collect data from kids. They found that of “40 popular and free child-friendly apps […] 70% passed along information about how the app was used, in some cases including the buttons clicked and in what order.” With over 50 billion app downloads on Apple’s App Store alone, IP Lasso expects apps like this to become even more prevalent.

“Brandjacking” developers often utilize well-known brands to create apps that look familiar or official in order to attract downloads. These apps are often“free”, but will frequently use unscrupulous tactics to collect private information and money from naive users.

To show how developers infringe on trademarks using popular brand names, IP Lasso analyzed the iconic children brands Barbie and LEGO. We used our software to find all apps containing either “Barbie” or “LEGO” in the title of the app and compiled the following information.

Barbie

IP Lasso  found 103 apps across the five major domestic app marketplaces containing Barbie in the app title. Of those 103 apps, only five are from Mattel, Inc. A majority of the other 98 apps feature the Barbie logo or trademark, and appear to do so without licensing the content from Mattel. One developer, “3D SOUND VOICE RECORDER MEDIA PLAYER GAMES”, has published five different apps featuring the Barbie logo despite having no apparent affiliation with Mattel:

1. Barbie Find Differences
2. Barbie Princess Bubbles Shoot
3. Barbie Princess Finds Numbers
4. Barbie Princess Jigsaw Puzzle
5. Cute Barbie Princess Dress Up

What’s particularly alarming about these five barbie apps is that each app requires access to the following in order to run:

• GPS Location
• Phone number and ID
• Take pictures and video without intervention
• Read web browsing history

In layman’s terms, this app can track your child’s location, read your phone number, see websites you’ve visited and take pictures at any time without intervention. The developer does not list a website for contact, offering only this ambiguous email address:

• lihu508@gmail.com

IP Lasso loaded one of the apps, “Barbie Find Differences”, and found that the app sends your senstive information to “umeng.com“, a domain name owned by Chao Zhang of Beijing, China. When first loading the app, your exact GPS location is sent to umeng.com, and this screen appears:

“Naughty chatrooms” are something that no parent would want their child to see. Also note that this app is listed with a content rating of “Low Maturity”

LEGO

The LEGO group has a long history of battling trademark and copyright infringement, and now these fraudulent developers have brought the infringement to the mobile app space. By using the same analytical techniques described above, IP Lasso found 247 apps containing LEGO in the title of the app. Of the 247 apps, only 38 are from the official LEGO Group developer account. After searching for evidence of spyware and adware, one app in particular stood out.

“Legos Star Wars” has been downloaded an estimated 40,000 times, features unlicensed LEGO characters, and contains screenshots from the Electronic Arts game of the same name. The developer, “thomasapps1”, uses this imagery to make it appear as if this app may in fact be a legitimate game. However, one look at the user reviews shows that duped downloaders were not happy:

Scam – ★☆☆☆☆ – joshua swinnerton – 05/25/2013

Just a bunch of ads. This app does literally nothing at all. No game, just videos and pictures (meaning that when you click on either of these, the app opens your browser and searches them on yahoo)

Rubbish – ★☆☆☆☆ – Harry Edwards – 05/03/2013

Don’t install this rubbish

The app also has access to sensitive information, requiring permission to read both GPS coordinates and email addresses on the device. When first loading this “low maturity” app, users are asked to download another poker app, featuring a scantily clad female avatar.

This type of brand abuse is not limited to the Barbie and LEGO brand names. Most well known trademarks are already facing infringement on the mobile app marketplaces. As Michael Graham points out in a recent edition of “Intellectual Property Magazine”, content creators need to “develop and make monitoring part of their intellectual property protection programmes”. To hear how IP Lasso can assist your brand’s monitoring and enforcement efforts, contact us.

For a full list of apps containing Barbie and LEGO in the title, see below:

Barbie:

LEGO