171–180 of 317 posts
If you are using Grindr on Android, install and use NetGuard. 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,…
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Just as some people pay for fastmail I am pretty sure there'd be some people paying an entrance fee to a social network. Wasn't the social network of last week, vero, supposed to be like that ?
Email is a poor comparison, because you're connecting to millions of other people using gmail/yahoo/whatever, for free. The correct comparison would be if eMail was a universally paid for service. It would NOT be what it is today.
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Reminds me of the relationship between the Mafia and the homosexual community of the early-mid 20th century. The Mafia didn’t particularly like gays, but they ran all of the gay bars because it gave them the opportunity to blackmail their patrons.
> The Mafia didn’t particularly like gays, but they ran all of the gay bars because it gave them the opportunity to blackmail their patrons Source? Curious to read more about this.
Blackmail probably existed but it was just a great opportunity to sell drugs and booze in illegal bars.
Can’t tell the worst, but I can tell that users should completely delete their Grindr account, now.
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Change of control is a huge problem when it comes to privacy sensitive data. That's also a big factor in why I have a problem with governments collecting data. You may trust the present day administration (or not...), but who knows what a future administration (or occupying force) is going to be up to (beside the obvious risk of a leak or a breach). The same goes for situations like bankruptcies and 'bad leavers', th…
> That's also a big factor in why I have a problem with governments collecting data. You may trust the present day administration (or not...), but who knows what a future administration (or occupying force) is going to be up to The standard example is how the Netherlands were rather religiously tolerant, but used to keep track of Jews for tax collection purposes before WW2. Then when the Nazis arrived, they had all t…
I wrote about that exact example:
Even within its confines, Grindr's data are rich for blackmail. (Consider: images and messages sent and received within 100 feet of Capitol Hill.) It was recently acquired by an offshore billionaire [1]. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-12/china-tec...
Makes me wonder, what would it take to legislate the use of personal information? Maybe we are getting close to this point? Seems like situations that result in direct pressure on the legislators would be more productive than ones involving us, their “employers”...
It's scary that it doesn't surprise me anymore. Especially social networks are considered most lucrative in terms of targeted marketing and data mining, and it's obvious why. Social networking remains a big deal, it's almost mandatory to have some social networking footprint online, or else you miss out on social life. Why is it still OK to trade data distilled from social media accounts? It's not! One of the many re…
Subscriptions, combined with community awareness advertisements showing where users' money is going to (and where it is not going to) and why it benefits them.
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This is like saying Twitter is liable if you tweet your own status.
That's not even close to the same thing. You're comparing involuntary and unknown sharing of personal data with explicit and self-actioned sharing of that data.
Declaring your HIV status on Grindr is voluntarily and knowingly sharing your own health information into the public domain. It is much closer to tweeting it out than telling a medical professional imo.
Grindr has never been exactly a bastion of good programming... Their app has always been subpar at best with infrequent updates, months/year long bugs, terrible UI/Navigation, lack of features that could be coded up in a weeks time that would GREATLY improve the experience (Message archival/hiding), and I could go on. It would be one thing if they features were relegated to the paid version (Grindr Xtra) but the only really big feature for Xtra is push notifications for when you get a new message.
All of this is to say the fact they are using HTTP to talk to these analytics/ad companies doesn't shock me at all. My bet is they haven't updated the libraries for these services in forever (which wouldn't be too hard to investigate).
As for HIV status getting sent it really depends on the service. They are not subject to HIPAA (even if you wish they were) so they can do this and I'm sure for targeting ads it makes sense. No need to waste ad dollars on "Get tested for HIV" for people who already know they are positive. As someone in this community and knows the orgs that pay for some of these ads are severely underfunded I have hard time saying this isn't important to make sure your ad dollars go as far as they can.
Lastly for people saying "just don't enter your status" you clearly don't understand this community, I'm sorry. But people who are positive face a HUGE stigma. Chatting on Grindr/Scruff is already an emotionally draining experience in a lot of cases, I don't you all want the details but let's just say failed conversations (for most people at least) don't exactly fill you with confidence/self-worth (yes there is a whole other discussion to be had there I'm sure). So waiting until you start a conversation to tell someone you are positive (instead of it being in your profile) is going to lead to even more failed conversations. If I were positive I think I'd trade my status away to analytics/ad companies in exchange for not having to talk to people who aren't interested in the first place. I'm saying that as a white male living in the US so depending on your situation you may disagree.