ConsenSys revised its terms of service last month to include the collection of user data like names, IP addresses, dates of birth, usernames, contact information, and gender.
In response to privacy concerns raised by the update, the company later stated that users could opt not to use Infura as their default node service provider.
ConsenSys claims in a recent blog post that it never sells user data and only collects it to guarantee successful transaction propagation, execution, and other functionalities like DDoS protection.
Additionally, the software company claims that it is working toward only keeping any collected data for a week.
“We are working on narrowing retention to 7 days, and we will append these retention policies to our privacy policy in an upcoming update.
We have never and will never sell any user data we collect. We use data strictly in adherence with the use limitations described in our privacy policy.”
ConsenSys affirms that MetaMask users have the option to forego using Infura nodes, but cautions that doing so might not always result in a more secure or private connection.
“We are also making some updates to MetaMask to reinforce our commitment to user choice. While Infura is the pre-loaded default RPC provider when users install MetaMask, sometimes a user wishes to designate an alternate third-party RPC or self-host their own node.
From a privacy perspective, we caution that these alternatives may not actually provide more privacy; alternate RPC providers have different privacy policies and data practices, and self-hosting a node may make it even easier for people to associate your Ethereum accounts with your IP address.”