41–50 of 317 posts
This is deeply troubling. Anyone who uses Tinder or any other dating site should try requesting their data and realize that these services could likely label you a sexual deviant, racist or otherwise based on your swipes alone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>For people who think this is still wrong, I'm curious what their pragmatic alternative is. Use the services you mentioned but DO NOT SEND HIV DATA TO THE ANALYTICS COMPANIES. Holy hell, how hard is that? Just omit that part.
Or just don't fill out that part of your profile.
It's become clear over the last year there is a strong need for a data privacy regulatory agency in US government. I understand that regulation hampers growth, but the tech industry is mature and developed to the point that it's time to reel in "moving fast and breaking things" a bit.
Is there proof of this? Some countries like Germany and Sweden are both highly regulated and have fastest economic growth in the West.
For what it's worth, the most private data here is shared to analytics companies for Grindr's only analytical use. My guess is that Grindr's agreement with Apptimize and Localytics asks for the strictest possible protection of that data. If anyone at Apptimize or Localytics has access to that data, I'd be incredibly surprised. This sort of deal isn't the same as sharing the HIV status to Google or Facebook so that ad…
The reasonable tradeoff, in this case, would be to continue using the third-party analytics saas, but exclude personally identifiable information, or at the very least, exclude this extremely sensitive information.
It seems like you're arguing that sharing data is wrong because, in the wrong hands, the data could be used to personally identify someone. In my mind, these are the ways that can happen:
1. The data is sent to an advertiser who can target based on that data. Seems possible, so it's relevant that this data isn't being shared with an ad firm. 2. The data is sent to a third party, whose employees can access and leak the data. 3. The data is sent to a third party, whose data gets compromised.
So the trade-off is, what is the value of having user information in a tool for analytics purposes, versus the chance that (2) or (3) (or any unknowns happen)? My argument is that analytics firms are not in the business of leaking or selling data; their business hinges on their client's data privacy. So to me, this seems like a reasonable trade-off for certain types of data.
As for whether HIV status is the type of data that's unreasonable... I can buy that argument either way. I've never used Grindr but I can imagine it being extremely relevant to its users. And any data that has product impact is useful in an analytics setting. For example, if Grindr has some features that make it easier for HIV-positive or negative people to filter, then they'd be interested in understanding whether it's being used in the product. Then again, I can equally see them deciding it's not worth the risk, and removing it.
If you think sharing sensitive data is wrong under all circumstances, on principle, then you're entitled to your beliefs, but that would seem to me awfully close to religion.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.faircode.ne...
https://github.com/M66B/NetGuard
NetGuard is an open source local VPN that allows you to block DNS lookups to prevent calls to 3rd parties, and it does not require root access.
Calls to all of the 3rd parties mentioned are blockable. Grindr does not need many domains to be operational to work, just their own domains (.grindr.com on 443, grindr.mobi on 443) and a couple of Google static domains like csi.gstatic.com on 443 .
Of course this does not prevent Grindr from rolling up the data and sharing that with 3rd parties, but the linked analysis suggests that this is all via the app making calls rather than the company selling it in bulk.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>For people who think this is still wrong, I'm curious what their pragmatic alternative is. Use the services you mentioned but DO NOT SEND HIV DATA TO THE ANALYTICS COMPANIES. Holy hell, how hard is that? Just omit that part.
Or just don't fill out that part of your profile.
For what it's worth, the most private data here is shared to analytics companies for Grindr's only analytical use. My guess is that Grindr's agreement with Apptimize and Localytics asks for the strictest possible protection of that data. If anyone at Apptimize or Localytics has access to that data, I'd be incredibly surprised. This sort of deal isn't the same as sharing the HIV status to Google or Facebook so that ad…
> Not everyone can afford to perform their own product analysis. Just because ethical behavior is expensive doesn't mean you have a license to do whatever you want.
We need a new business model for social media, one which actually serves the customer instead of trying to lure them into productizing themselves.
This only leaves the 3rd party option. But someone like that will always want something in return, and the only thing that you have to offer is access to your users and their data.
We need a new business model for social media, one which actually serves the customer instead of trying to lure them into productizing themselves.
So you're going to pay to use it right? If this imaginary product managed to get 1% of Facebook to hand over their credit card. That would be the most wildly successful pay to use application in existence. Will never happen. Social Media sites rely on mass adoption, among those who refuse to pay for just about anything.
Wasn't the social network of last week, vero, supposed to be like that ?