Here’s an uncomfortable thought: The apps you trust with your money might be the ones watching you the closest.
I’m not talking about shady spyware you downloaded by accident. I mean the mainstream stuff — tax filers, payment apps, the friendly budgeting tool tracking every dollar you spend.
It’s common knowledge that if you use any online service that costs you nothing, you’re the product being sold. And the most valuable information about you? Where your money goes.
Federal regulators have caught some of these apps red-handed. Here are five worth a hard look — and how to shut each one down.
1. ‘Free’ tax-filing apps
Few apps know more about you than the one you hand your tax return to. Income, refund amount, dependents, your address — it’s all sitting right there.
So it landed like a gut punch when U.S. senators investigating the practice reported that tax-prep services including H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer had funneled sensitive taxpayer data to Meta and Google for years.
The culprit was tracking code called the Meta Pixel. The 2023 congressional report found it scooped up filing status, approximate refund amounts, and even the names of dependents, often without clear consent.
The FTC later warned tax-prep companies to cut it out. But by then, the data was long gone.
How to shut it down: When you can, skip the commercial “free” web filers. If you qualify, file directly through the IRS’s own Free File program — though it’s worth knowing that free option’s future has been shaky.
2. Peer-to-peer payment apps
Splitting a dinner bill shouldn’t broadcast your life to strangers. But for years, that’s roughly what happened.
Back in 2018, the FTC settled with PayPal over its Venmo app. The problem? Transactions were public by default — visible to anyone, even people without an account.
Your rent, your nights out, whom you pay and when. Stitched together, that’s a surprisingly detailed map of your life, sitting out in the open.
How to shut it down: Open your payment app’s privacy settings and set transactions to private. On Venmo, switch your default audience to “Private,” and lock down your past transactions too.
3. Buy-now-pay-later apps
That “four easy payments” button is doing more than spreading out your cost. It’s studying you.
In a 2022 report, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau flagged data harvesting as a core concern in the buy-now-pay-later business.
The agency described how these lenders gather your data and use it to nudge you toward more purchases, wringing more value out of every customer.
In other words, the convenience is the bait. Your spending habits are the catch.
How to shut it down: Reach for a regular card on one-off buys. If you do use a BNPL app, dig into its settings and switch off data sharing and personalized offers wherever you can.
Quick aside — most internet financial advice comes from people who weren’t alive during the last recession. I’ve been writing about money for more than 35 years. Want rock-solid advice? Sign up for the free Money Talks Newsletter. Takes 10 seconds. No fluff. No spam.
4. Free budgeting and money-management apps
Handing a budgeting app a live feed of your finances feels productive. Just know what you’re trading away.
Plenty of “free” finance apps make money the same way other free apps do — by collecting and monetizing your data.
Researchers who analyzed popular finance apps in 2025 found many demanded permissions they didn’t need. Most asked for precise location, and a sizable share wanted to track your location around the clock, even when the app was closed.
Your budgeting helper doesn’t need to know you’re standing in a casino at 2 a.m.
How to shut it down: Audit the permissions on every money app, and watch for the phone features working against you. Deny location, contacts, and microphone access unless the app truly needs them. On most phones, you can set location to “While Using” or “Never.”
5. Apps that sell your location to data brokers
This is the one that should make your skin crawl. Some apps exist mostly to track where you go and then sell it.
In 2024, the FTC banned a data broker called X-Mode (later Outlogic) from selling sensitive location data. The company had pulled precise location from hundreds of everyday apps using embedded code.
According to the FTC, that data could pinpoint visits to medical clinics, places of worship, and other deeply private spots — the sort of details you want to keep private. It got sold to clients from finance firms to government contractors.
You’ve probably never heard of X-Mode. That’s the whole point. The app on your phone is just the front door.
How to shut it down: This is where the big switches come in — and they’re below.
The fix that covers all of them
Shutting down apps one by one helps. But a few phone settings choke off tracking much closer to the source.
First, turn off your advertising ID. On an iPhone, go to Settings, Privacy & Security, Tracking and switch off “Allow Apps to Request to Track.” On an Android device, open Settings, go to Security & privacy (or just Privacy). Tap More privacy settings, then Ads and Delete advertising ID.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation says killing that ad ID is one of the most effective things you can do to limit third-party tracking.
Next, lock down location. Set each app to “While Using” or “Never,” and shut off background location for anything that doesn’t need it.
Finally, go after the brokers directly. Consumer Reports’ free Permission Slip app does the legwork, and Californians can wipe their info from registered brokers in one shot using the state’s Delete Request and Opt-Out Platform.
None of this makes you invisible. But it turns you from an easy target into a hard one. And in a world where your data is the product, being a hard target is the whole game.
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