That confirms Marktplaats to RTL Nieuws, which received several reports in recent days from people who suddenly said they had access to the Marktplaats account of an unknown person.
Searches and chat conversations
The problem was caused by an update to the website that Marktplaats implemented last weekend. Then something went wrong that allowed some users to access someone else’s account. There, in addition to the name, email address, zip code and telephone number, they also had access to advertisements, searches, chat conversations and payments.
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People complained on social media and the forum of technology website Tweakers. “I decided to take a look at Marktplaats, but then I noticed something: I was logged into someone else’s account … I could do everything on the account,” Luuk writes on the forum. “Because I did not understand how this was possible, I contacted the owner of the account. He also did not understand what had happened.”
Datalek
At Marktplaats, 24 users reported that they had access to someone else’s account. “We have very engaged users and started working with them to solve it,” said the spokesperson. It is possible that the number is even higher, because not everyone rings the bell at Marktplaats.
The problem has been solved by a new update, the spokesman said: “This is a major problem and should never have happened. Ensuring the privacy of our users is one of our priorities.” Marktplaats has reported the data breach to the Dutch Data Protection Authority. Affected users must be notified of the leak in accordance with European privacy law.
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