San Francisco, March 31 (IANS) Video conferencing desktop and mobile application Houseparty has said that it would pay a $1 million bounty to find out the entity behind what the company described as a paid commercial smear campaign.

Several Houseparty users claimed they had social media accounts hacked and taken over after installing the video conferencing app on their smartphones. They received messages like: "Delete Houseparty app! Gmail, Spotify, bank accounts all are getting hacked!"

The company said that all Houseparty accounts are safe.
"The service is secure, has never been compromised, and doesn't collect passwords for other sites," Houseparty said in tweet, denying any hacking rumours.

Houseparty officials said they are being defamed by someone.

"We are investigating indications that the recent hacking rumors were spread by a paid commercial smear campaign to harm Houseparty," the app maker said in a tweet on Tuesday.

"We are offering a $1,000,000 bounty for the first individual to provide proof of such a campaign to bounty@houseparty.com".

According to Apptopia, downloads of the app rose from an average of 130,000 a week mid-February to 2m a week in the middle of March.

Online gaming firm Epic Games purchased Houseparty from its creator in 2019 for an undisclosed sum.

--IANS wh/na