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Grindr Shares Personal Information With Third-Parties

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Re: Grindr Shares Personal Information With Third-Parties

#141

Post by chimeracoder »

hluska wrote: post #119
kayfox wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you could also just not fill it out in the first place. To be clear, this is public profile information displayed to any user of the Grindr app.

Except that if a user fills in a Grindr profile, they believe they are only sharing information with Grindr/its users. The truth is that they share all of the information (in less than secure ways) with a variety of third parties and fail to disclose that fact. That's illegal in many countries (including mine) and it demonstrates an unbelievable lack of regard for user privacy or safety.

> That's illegal in many countries (including mine) and it demonstrates an unbelievable lack of regard for user privacy or safety.

There's a very strong chance that this is illegal in many states in the US as well (not sure about federal law).

Re: Grindr Shares Personal Information With Third-Parties

#142

Post by makomk »

arrythur wrote: post #52
amq wrote: post #24

A bit unrelated, but imagine how much data has Tinder collected, if Cambridge Analytica could do that much with just a comparatively unpopular quiz app.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the quiz app just a way to gain access to a user's data? So it wasn't so much the content of the quiz that was revealing, just the access to data it provided.

I'm pretty sure their "psychometrics" play required the data users gave them as part of the quiz. The whole point of the exercise was to supposedly figure out people's personality traits from their social media profiles and let marketers target them based on that, and I think the personality quiz was probably the only way they could get ground truth information to train their model on.

Re: Grindr Shares Personal Information With Third-Parties

#143

Post by ktta »

pmlnr wrote: post #115
ktta wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFWall requires root, while NetGuard doesn't. Important distinction now that rooting affects ability to use features like Google Pay, Netflix (offline download), etc.

Rooted phone, no google services, and netflix downloads are just fine.

SafetyNet is a cat and mouse game. A lot of people don't have the patience for it.

Re: Grindr Shares Personal Information With Third-Parties

#144

Post by saosebastiao »

typon wrote: post #116
saosebastiao wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, all regulation hurts economic growth. The mechanism is simple: regulatory compliance is a cost. If it's a fixed cost like most regulation, it becomes a barrier to entry. If it's a variable cost, it reduces labor productivity. HOWEVER, some regulation may improve net economic growth by improving the functioning of markets such that it overcomes the costs that compliance imposes. Therefore the discussion of regula…

That's a blanket statement without any evidence. Its like saying static checking always hurts productivity because you need to be compliant with the compiler. What if complying with regulations reduces costs? Why does it have to necessarily increase them?

Your analogy is spot on, because both are true. Regulation increases costs, and it may also reduce costs. Static checking increases costs, and it may also reduces costs.

The whole point of what I wrote is that the net benefit depends on the tradeoff that is made between the two costs and that tradeoff will depend entirely on context and details, which excludes the possibility of coming to an aggregate conclusion (such as static typing is always better, or regulation is always good).

For example, I would never do exploratory data analysis using Scala, but I would also never write a production system in R. In each scenario it is useful to separate the various costs and benefits and weigh them against each other, as opposed to taking an ideological stand like "STATIC TYPING OR DIE".

Re: Grindr Shares Personal Information With Third-Parties

#145

Post by rdtsc »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #21

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...

Yikes. Combine this with the Chinese OPM hack, where extremely personal data for most government employees with security clearance has been stolen, and they have a blackmail goldmine on their hands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...

They can verify what has been reported on sf-86 vs what might be found from this service. Any affairs or issues not reported are ripe for blackmail. Possibilities are endless as they say.

Re: Grindr Shares Personal Information With Third-Parties

#146

Post by hluska »

Kalium wrote: post #129
alex_young wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Is there proof of this? > Yes, all regulation hurts economic growth. What about the proof of that? What basis are you making the assertion on? It seems like some regulation can promote growth. For instance, regulation on product safety increases consumer confidence in the safety of those products and creates a broader market for them.

Upon careful reading of the comment to which you are responding, I found that it neatly addresses very precisely the keen, sensible, and reasonable point you have raised. Perhaps you have had an experience significantly from mine?

That comment assumes we can all agree upon a textbook definition of 'economic regulation'. An economic regulation is generally defined as any legislation or administrative act that impacts either pricing a good or entering a market. If you follow that strict, conventional (in economics circles) definition, it's tough to argue with the comment.

Outside of textbooks, economic regulation has a much bigger meaning such that a statement like that would be highly confusing and inflammatory. Outside of textbooks, economic regulation can refer to anything from health/safety legislation to antitrust legislation to taxes/tariffs/freer trade. Economic regulation = increased costs only works if you use a conventional definition of regulation...

Re: Grindr Shares Personal Information With Third-Parties

#147

Post by dang »

icelancer wrote: post #20
morley wrote: post #8

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…

>>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.

Could you please not use allcaps for emphasis in HN comments?

This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Re: Grindr Shares Personal Information With Third-Parties

#148

Post by agumonkey »

billmalarky wrote: post #7

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.

I wonder how these things were before. Maybe there was a bit of data sharing but at such small scale and speed that it didn't really matter.

Re: Grindr Shares Personal Information With Third-Parties

#150

Post by product50 »

EmilStenstrom wrote: post #139
product50 wrote: post #133

These are 3rd party analytics firms and not any random companies. Both these firms have strong data protection processes and are very secure. From Grindr's perspective, they are probably looking for analytics for different segments of their users and send all data to Localytics who help them with this (vs. trying to build these internally). Here is a thought. Do we think that the data is more secure with Grindr itsel…

The data is already in Grindr’s systems, this means it is ALSO at Localytics (and others). This is not as safe as if it was only in Grindr’s own systems.

Fair point. My point is that Grindr's system are likely more vulnerable than Localytics and thus that is where the soft point exists if you are a hacker and are trying to get the data.
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