If you’re one of the 600,000 American truck drivers who use the popular Trucker Path app for planning trips and finding parking, then you’re willingly running a tracking device now owned by a Chinese corporation.
Chinese social networking company Renren Inc. officially announced that it has acquired Trucker Path Inc, the creators of the Trucker Path app, on Friday for an undisclosed sum.
“With the acquisition of the Trucker Path social platform and the Truckloads freight marketplace, the company will be well-positioned technologically to drive innovation within this important industry,” said Joseph Chen, CEO of Renren.
The Trucker Path app was created by Viktor Radchenko, who moved from Ukraine to the U.S. in 2012. It quickly became one of the most popular trucking mobile apps of all time, racking up hundreds of thousands of active users in just a few years.
With the sale to Renren Inc., the location and behavioral data of up to a third of all American over-the-road truck drivers will be owned and controlled by the Beijing-based company.
Renren rose to prominence by creating a Facebook-clone for Chinese users, and benefited greatly from communist China’s ban on American social networks in the country.
Although many American social networks are still banned from operating in China, it appears that Renren (through Trucker Path) will now own the information of one of our most important labor forces — the American trucker.
