not a single statistic or data point. this is really garbage content
Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google
131–140 of 241 posts
Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google
#132This is fine, people can do what they want, but they're deluding themselves if they think small companies are perfect stewards of data. How exactly do these people know that Fitbit wasn't already selling their data using it in a way they don't approve of?
One reason I like sharing smaller slices of my privacy with smaller companies is that it makes it harder to correlate everything.
I have no doubt Google can tie together every aspect of my life if I let them.
Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google
#133Classic example of an article in search of a movement. Take a handful of tweets that share an opinion and write an article that makes it seem like there's a mass exodus. It's ok, you don't need anything more than a handful of tweets to back your claim. Yes, some people are privacy conscious and are going to stop using Fitbit but how many are actually doing it? A lot? A few? Who knows. I'm sure author has no clue but…
Classic example of a social media dissenting opinion. "I don't agree with TFA, so clearly they're lying. It's okay, I don't need anything more than my gut instinct to disagree."
Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google
#134After having worked at Google, it is the only company I actually do trust with my data. (But I am also ok with them using it to customize my experience, and even target ads) Their internal privacy controls are extensive. As a human, it is nearly impossible to access someone's data, even when debugging code/ML models/etc. And when you do need to, it requires exhaustive oversight/approval, and _everything_ is audited.
You certainly did drink the Kool-aid.
The only problem is that if everything you say is actually true (it might only haven been true for you, or for a subset of folks working there), there is strictly no guarantee that it will last, especially now that all the people who did make Google into what is is culture-wise are long gone enjoying their [B|M]illions.
The next wave of leaders that are taking over have far less scruples and inherited a no-string-attached treasure chest (actually, a better analogy would be a amazingly well stocked armory) and will do with it whatever they damn please.
Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google
#135Classic example of an article in search of a movement. Take a handful of tweets that share an opinion and write an article that makes it seem like there's a mass exodus. It's ok, you don't need anything more than a handful of tweets to back your claim. Yes, some people are privacy conscious and are going to stop using Fitbit but how many are actually doing it? A lot? A few? Who knows. I'm sure author has no clue but…
The article clearly states "some", I think this comment is a bit defensive in that regard.
Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google
#136After having worked at Google, it is the only company I actually do trust with my data. (But I am also ok with them using it to customize my experience, and even target ads) Their internal privacy controls are extensive. As a human, it is nearly impossible to access someone's data, even when debugging code/ML models/etc. And when you do need to, it requires exhaustive oversight/approval, and _everything_ is audited.
1) That can change at any time, 2) Those data are never going away, and may not (=will not) belong to Google forever, 3) Data that exists can be demanded by the government, justly or otherwise, and they will get it—private companies running a dragnet spy operation on everyone is only marginally better than the government doing the same directly, 4) Targeted ads are adversarial. So are ads in general, really—yes I kno…
1) why would a company remove that systems? They've been practically leak free since they started. Why risk the public outcry if a junior developer walks out with a couple of terabytes of personal data because they loosened access to such data without any clear advantage?
Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google
#137Classic example of an article in search of a movement. Take a handful of tweets that share an opinion and write an article that makes it seem like there's a mass exodus. It's ok, you don't need anything more than a handful of tweets to back your claim. Yes, some people are privacy conscious and are going to stop using Fitbit but how many are actually doing it? A lot? A few? Who knows. I'm sure author has no clue but…
Classic example of a social media dissenting opinion. "I don't agree with TFA, so clearly they're lying. It's okay, I don't need anything more than my gut instinct to disagree."
The person you’re responding to didn’t accuse them of lying, nor did they disagree.
Selecting colourful Twitter anecdotes and meshing them into prebaked narrative with a eye catching headline makes it click bait, not journalism.
Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google
#138I bought a Garmin the day Fitbit sold out and haven't touched the Fitbit since. I'm very happy with the switch, the Garmin (Vivosmart 4) app and device are actually better than Fitbit's on almost every account, so that's a double win :) The only unfortunate consequence is that Garmin's import service only imports very coarse data from your Fitbit export, so all detailed historic records are lost unless you manually d…
Any idea how data exporting is with the Vivosmart 4? I thought about getting one but one of my main use cases for getting a fitness tracker is exporting data and then creating custom visualizations from it. I haven't dug into this world much yet but curious what the best hardware would be for this use case.
If you sync to garmin connect its easy enough to manually download many different formats of activity recording for fitness activities. I don't have a vivosmart but I haven't had issues collecting data from my Fenix watch.
There is a service I do like from https://tapiriik.com/ that will sync all your fitness data across a bunch of common fitness apps (it helps when all your friends want to link up for activities but nobody agrees on a single tracking platform). One of the sync options is just to directly download all the raw datafiles to dropbox which is pretty convenient.
If none of those sound good you could roll your own from the source code to tapiriik which is available here: https://github.com/cpfair/tapiriik . It does use some hacks to get around garmin not making all their APIs easy for personal development.
Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google
#139Classic example of an article in search of a movement. Take a handful of tweets that share an opinion and write an article that makes it seem like there's a mass exodus. It's ok, you don't need anything more than a handful of tweets to back your claim. Yes, some people are privacy conscious and are going to stop using Fitbit but how many are actually doing it? A lot? A few? Who knows. I'm sure author has no clue but…
Similarly: even if a nontrivial number of people are dumping wearable trackers, is there evidence that it's disproportionately happening now or to Fitbit because of Google ? My first guess would be "as data breaches and abuses hit the news, people are more skeptical of wearable trackers in general". I've heard several people talk about getting hit by the MyFitnessPal security breach or Strava revealing army bases; it…
There's also the option of open source fitness tracker apps that don't upload your data anywhere, i.e. Gadgetbridge which I use.
Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, there should be a threshold. Otherwise the newspaper is gonna be full of articles which are not interesting at all to the general population.
There should be editorial judgement about whether or not something is worth publishing. That is not, and shouldn't be, a quantitative threshold.
There already is. In tech reporting, the criterion whether it can be fit into the pre-existing narrative of Big Tech being evil. There are similar numbers of people thanking Google for new features every day, but you won't hear about that.