Worried about customer privacy, Amazon has paused the sales of BLU phones on its website, stating that it doesn’t plan to lift the sale block until the issue has been resolved. BLU already issued an official statement just yesterday about a recent report from last week that two more of its devices were loaded with spying software from Adups, citing that its devices don’t contain any spying software and that any data collected by Adups software is within policy guidelines. Furthermore BLU has already mentioned that it’s working to resolve this latest issue.
That being said, BLU phone sales may not have to be put on pause on Amazon’s website for long, but Amazon isn’t taking the risk of selling devices that could be a problem for consumers. Though it was reported last week that security researchers from Kryptowire had found what seems to be spying software on the BLU Grand M and BLU Advance 5.0, Amazon isn’t necessarily rushing to judgement in the way it’s referring to the situation, only referring to the issue at hand as a “potential security issue.” Customers would be wise to take that into consideration as Amazon may end up bringing the BLU phones back in the near future, and if that ends up being the case then there will likely be nothing to worry about in regards to security or privacy concerns.
Worth mentioning is that Kryptowire’s VP, Tom Karygiannis, which BLU referred to in its statement yesterday, reportedly didn’t authorize BLU to make a statement including any references on his behalf. While the pausing of sales poses a problem for BLU as its phones have been some of the best selling handsets on Amazon since it started selling the R1 HD as a Prime Exclusive (this particular handset was Amazon’s best-selling device), it’s entirely possible that the issue will be cleared up soon enough and BLU’s smartphones can return to their normal sales. When and if that happens though, it’s unclear how well BLU phones will continue to do, as reports of the same issue resurfacing with different phones is sure to have some effect on customer opinion. That being said, it’s also worth mentioning that BLU did state in its official response from yesterday that newer BLU phones which were to be released following the initial report of this issue from last year, don’t include the Adups software, and the Grand M and Advance 5.0 were phones that were already available prior to that report.