Consensys upgraded its privacy policy yesterday, informing MetaMask users that their Ethereum wallet address and IP addresses would be captured during transactions utilizing Infura as their preferred RPC provider.
Consensys, the New York-based blockchain software company, made it clear that when users enable Infura as their default Remote Procedure Call (RPC) provider in MetaMask, they provide access to Infura to collect their wallet and IP address while making transactions. However, if the user uses a different RPC provider or their Ethereum node, neither MetaMask nor Infura will have access to their credentials.
Infura is a blockchain tool and API development business led by Consensys in October 2019, whereas RPC is a software communication protocol that enables web3 applications to remotely connect with blockchains.
This change has caused alarm among Web3 users, who believe a boycott of Consensys’ services is imminent. As a result, many prominent figures in this market have decided to withdraw their wallets from MetaMask in order to protect the secrecy of their addresses. The upgrade was followed by a tweet from Chris Blec demanding that ConsenSys clarify its inconsistent privacy policy for MetaMask.
Source: https://www.cryptonewsz.com/metamask-users-boycott-consensys-for-collecting-wallet-addresses/