When an app is free, the product being sold is usually your attention and your data. Social media platforms, search engines, and many free apps collect detailed information about you: your location, your browsing history, what you search for, the content you stop to read, the people you contact, and the times of day you are most active. This data is used to build a profile of you that gets sold to advertisers. You agreed to this when you accepted the terms and conditions, which most people do not read. Data collection is not hidden or illegal. It is disclosed in the terms most people skip. The question is not whether it is happening. It is whether you understand it and make choices with that understanding.