South Korean tech giant Samsung has come under fire after users flagged that its devices contained what cybersecurity experts are calling bloatware across multiple regions globally.

Bloatware is a pre-installed application that runs on a device’s operating system. Initially, the software, AppCloud, was reported to be pre-installed in Samsung Galaxy A and M series phones across West Asia and North Africa.

But now, users from Europe and South Asia have reported that the bloatware also comes pre-installed on their devices, and is “unremovable”.

Uninstalling bloatware requires root access, the highest level of control in a computer system.

In February, SMEX (formerly Social Media Exchange), a digital rights organisation based in Beirut, reported that AppCloud secretly harvests user data and lacks an accessible privacy policy, raising legal and ethical concerns due to its ties to the Israeli firm ironSource.

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