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Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google

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Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google

#181

Post by devicetray0 »

alleyshack wrote: post #148
nevir wrote: post #96

After 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.

I'm an Xoogler who worked on the privacy team a few years ago. All of this is true, and at the time I worked there, I made the conscious, considered decision to buy in to the Google data collection ecosystem because I trusted the people I worked with to protect my data. Several years out, I no longer trust Google - not because I trust my former (immediate) coworkers less, but because the direction the entire advertis…

> Several years out, I no longer trust Google - not because I trust my former (immediate) coworkers less, but because the direction

It makes me uncomfortable that the data is always there, and the direction of the business just needs to change. Perhaps they're not being profitable enough for wall street? And on a time scale of 10 more years, I'm sure there will be a number of "incidents" in which teams were given approval to use the data in unsavory ways.

Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google

#182

Post by whycombinater »

pmarreck wrote: post #50
Retric wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I just got rid of my Fitbit and never spoke of it on social media. My guess is it’s limited a few thousand to low tens of thousands of people which is not economically meaningful on it’s own. But, it does show another side of the privacy debate. Many companies are selling data not because it’s significant revenue, but rather because they have no reason to leave money on the table.…

I have never felt harmed or threatened by the idea that my anonymized data (health or otherwise) is being used by large organizations... assuming it is anonymized. As far as I can see, there are many good uses of this data (some potentially profitable, such as selling to health insurance companies so they can better price their products and evaluate risks) and very few bad uses of this data. Can someone please clarif…

Because anonymous percentages can be interpreted as the likelihood that you yourself are those things, like a sort of quantum mechanical cat paradox. I believe it's also how our "collective consciousness" and language kind of works (you're outputting what you hope they'll be inputting based on what people typically will input). Basically, if anonymous stats show 99.9999% of people watch child porn, I can now accuse you beyond a reasonable doubt (roughly) of watching child porn. Or like if it become known that 80% of people were trans, I might stop going on Tinder. While I don't know _you_, given a bunch of data, I know "people like you", "your people", or whatever other phrase that half of people find offensive and the other half find accurate. Black people be black, almost by definition. Jews are Jews. I'm now seen as a racist white male KKK incel Trump supporting basement dwelling... Wait, we're getting off topic. The point is, society retardation aside, data will only ever be used to judge you to the best of its ability, and rarely in a way that will let you bang more hot women, but more frequently in a way that raises the prices of what you want or need or places you in jail. Cops will park where people "tend" to speed. They didn't know _you_ would be speeding, but ... they did. You are betrayed by your peers to evil forces.

If the people were given anonymous data that showed that 100% of the 2008 bankers were going on a cruise departing tomorrow, we could easily fix things. Well, that's what _they're_ doing to us.

Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google

#184

Post by epistasis »

koheripbal wrote: post #129
x0x0 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also deleted.

We are not representative of the general population, so our anecdotes are almost worthless.

Representative is not as important as if they influence others to act as well.

Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google

#185

Post by jammygit »

Retric wrote: post #23
MichaelApproved wrote: post #19

Classic 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…

I don’t know about anyone else, but I just got rid of my Fitbit and never spoke of it on social media. My guess is it’s limited a few thousand to low tens of thousands of people which is not economically meaningful on it’s own. But, it does show another side of the privacy debate. Many companies are selling data not because it’s significant revenue, but rather because they have no reason to leave money on the table.…

My wife got rid of her spare Fitbit bands and plans to not use the Fitbit, and to replace our scale without mentioning it on social media.

Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google

#186

Post by blotter_paper »

JohnFen wrote: post #152
Retric wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I just got rid of my Fitbit and never spoke of it on social media. My guess is it’s limited a few thousand to low tens of thousands of people which is not economically meaningful on it’s own. But, it does show another side of the privacy debate. Many companies are selling data not because it’s significant revenue, but rather because they have no reason to leave money on the table.…

> I don’t know about anyone else, but I just got rid of my Fitbit and never spoke of it on social media. I only know two people who use Fitbits, and both of them have ditched them. I agree that the number of people doing this is likely small, but such people certainly do exist, and they aren't incredibly rare.

The population who ditches them might also be skewed towards developers, which might mean that less people are hacking on the Fitbit SDK which could hurt their ecosystem. Apple has tried to court developers for this reason. Losing a piece of that market might be more hurtful to a company than losing a similar absolute number of the general population.

Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google

#187

Post by tito »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #19

Classic 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…

Deleted my FitBit account when I read the news.

Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google

#188

Post by nradov »

mavsman wrote: post #86
vader1 wrote: post #37

I 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.

I haven't tried with a Vivosmart 4 but most Garmin devices can be directly mounted as a USB drive and then you can copy the FIT files. There is an SDK available for parsing the files.

https://www.thisisant.com/developer/

Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google

#189

Post by comfydragon »

JohnFen wrote: post #172
cosmojg wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PINE64 is working on a privacy-respecting Linux smartwatch dubbed the PineTime: https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PineTime Once my Pebble Time dies, I think that's where I'm going.

Yes, I'm very interested in this as well. My Pebble is still working fine, but the day will come when I need to replace it, and this is the only thing I've seen that looks like it might be able to do that. The page says that it's 5 years away from release, though.

Expected Release: Q1/Q2 2020, pending on development result

I think the "Availability" note means how long they plan to support it and/or sell it.

Re: Some users say they're getting rid of Fitbit because they don't trust Google

#190

Post by rubicon33 »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #19

Classic 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…

A disturbing trend of the internet age.

Humans are terrible at quantifying these 'movements'. Even 50 people complaining about something can SEEM like a lot.

Our brains just aren't wired to do proper statistics first analysis on incoming data. Everyone is susceptible to this default mode of thinking, including journalists. I believe it's the cause of some of the crazy, anti-science movements that we're seeing in the last 10 years.

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