Another dating surveillance app is climbing Apple’s App Store.
TeaOnHer is essentially a gender flip of the original Tea app.
The app lets men post anonymously about women.
The viral Tea app, which lets women post anonymously about men, has a new rival: TeaOnHer. In a gender flip, the new app is for men.
TeaOnHer is largely a copy of the original, but for men instead of women. Its description in Apple’s App Store is nearly identical to that of the other Tea app, which is officially called Tea Dating Advice.
TeaOnHer has climbed up Apple’s App Store chart for free apps this week. As of Friday, it’s the No. 3 spot. That’s right behind Tea, which is at No. 2. (ChatGPT is at the top.)
The app describes itself as an “essential safety companion” and touts features like “verified reports about dating experiences to help you identify red flags.” According to its app store listing, TeaOnHer users are also allowed to post anonymously or with pseudonyms.
Sensor Tower, a marketing intelligence firm, estimated that the TeaOnHer app had been downloaded over 165,000 times as of Thursday since the app launched earlier this month.
TeaOnHer has not gotten as positive a reception from app users as the original so far. The new one has an average rating of 2.0 in the App Store, while the old one has 4.6.
The new app has already been facing security concerns, much like the Tea app it’s replicating.
Business Insider spoke with security researcher Kasra Rahjerdi, who spotted a flaw in the TeaOnHer app’s security that revealed content from users’ posts, including reviews men had posted and images of women posted to the feed. Rahjerdi was able to view this information via TeaOnHer’s publicly accessible API, he said.
TechCrunch reporters also found a “security flaw that allows anyone access to data belonging to TeaOnHer app users,” the outlet reported on Wednesday. The data included users’ verification selfies and driver’s licenses, usernames, and email addresses, according to TechCrunch. Business Insider was unable to independently verify this flaw.
TeaOnHer did not respond to requests for comments. Business Insider also contacted Xavier Lampkin, whose name appears in TeaOnHer’s API and is listed on LinkedIn as the CEO of TeaOnHer’s developer, Newville Media Corporation. Lampkin did not respond.
Last week, the Tea app (officially called Tea Dating Advice) experienced a data breach that exposed about 72,000 images, which similarly exposed users’ selfies and driver’s licenses. Tea confirmed the breach and later confirmed that private messages were also exposed.
Lawsuits filed by users of the Tea app quickly followed.
“We are working to identify any users whose personal information was involved and will be offering free identity protection services to those individuals,” a Tea spokesperson previously told Business Insider.
“Every single one of these apps promise privacy, promise anonymity, promise secrecy, and so forth, but they’re ultimately still applications — they still have to authenticate users,” Tom Tovar, CEO of app security company Appdome. “Anonymity does not equal security.”
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