Koo denies leaking user data, clarifies about Chinese firm’s investment

 French cybersecurity says on Twitter that the Indian-made app was leaking email and other details about users

Koo, the India-made response to Twitter, has denied a French cybersecurity researcher’s allegation that the app was leaking user data. Robert Baptiste, who goes by the pseudonym Elliot Alderson on Twitter, said late Wednesday night: “You asked so I did it. I spent 30 min on this new Koo app. The app is leaking of the personal data of his users: email, dob, name, marital status, gender.”

Aprameya Radhakrishna, the co-founder of Koo, wrote on Twitter to deny the statement. “Some news about data leaking being spoken about unnecessarily. Please read this: The data visible is something that the user has voluntarily shown on their profile of Koo. It cannot be termed a data leak. If you visit a user profile you can see it anyway,” he said. Baptiste, in response, tweeted that Radhakrishna’s defence was “a lie”. He posted a screenshot of a Koo app user, claiming date of birth, marital status and other information were not mentioned in the profile description.

Radhakrishna said a Chinese company called Shunwei Capital had a single-digit investment in Koo–the likely reason for people saying the app was not completely Indian–but it was exiting the company. "A set of Indian entrepreneurs are seen to be investing in Koo with Ashish Hemrajani from BookMyShow, Vivekananda from Bounce, Nikhil Kamat of Zerodha amongst various others entering the cap table of the company. It is a clear indication that the company is getting more and more Indian money into the company," Koo App said in a statement on Thursday...Read More