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Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

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Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#231

Post by wingspar »

rustcleaner wrote: post #142

Probably the best one-liner fix in law I can think of, is to make it a imprisonable felony to give money to someone or an organization for the purpose of speaking a particular message as their own, and accepting money in exchange for speaking a message as your own. Basically ban advertising, or at least make each commercial basically say "General Motors has paid us to tell you that ... ... ..." instead of the sexy se…

Wouldn’t that just restrict paid endorsements?

General Motors making an ad campaign paying for broadcast does not equate to the station / channel endorsing a product.

How about a plumbing company buys a billboard and puts an ad for their services on it?

Pretty sure the courts would find this plan violates the first amendment too.

Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#232

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

NoTranslationL wrote: post #23

If anyone is interested in a privacy focused tracking app that stores all your data locally, I make an app called Reflect [0] whose sole purpose is this, plus on-device analysis. We’re working on a menstrual tracking feature right now and it’s pretty far along. We’ve just released an anomaly detection feature as well. [0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reflect-track-anything/id64638...

What kind of "analysis" is done on the data ? We have apps like mensinator that are very simple.

I'd like to know if it is different from these simple apps ?

Note: im a guy btw

Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#233

Post by JohnBooty »

mstridder1 wrote: post #196
hoistbypetard wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing mysterious about a miscarriage. They are common. According to the Mayo Clinic: > Miscarriage is the sudden loss of a pregnancy before the 20th week. About 10% to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage. But the actual number is likely higher. This is because many miscarriages happen early on, before people realize they're pregnant. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/pregnancy-los... S…

As I understand it, in this case, a witness saw a woman throwing a child's remains in a dumpster. After investigation, it was cleared as a miscarriage. What would you prefer? We turn a blind eye to people disposing of bodies? Cops refuse to investigate such reports? It sounds like everything worked as intended here. Of course it's unfortunate for the innocent woman involved, but this is clearly not a witchhunt.

This line of discussion inevitably boils down to what one's definition of a human life is and whether a fetus at a particular stage of development meets that definition.

Let's not have that discussion here on HN. It's not going to be fruitful.

Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#234

Post by BurningFrog »

yesfitz wrote: post #197
duxup wrote: post #157

The article doesn't define what exactly they mean by "risks women safety". I don't buy into the idea that all or any advertising is a "safety" issue if that is where they're going. I think there's a very weird type of patronizing that goes on where suddenly we fear for everyone's ability to deal with advertising as if they've got no self control or agency ...

Third paragraph: "The report’s authors caution that cycle tracking app (CTA) data in the wrong hands could result in risks to job prospects, workplace monitoring, health insurance discrimination and cyberstalking – and limit access to abortion." If you want to trace the claims to their sources, you can read the full report from MCTD Cambridge here: https://www.mctd.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/The-High-S...

It's not a secret that women of fertile age have periods.

How knowing the specific days could add all those risks is hard to see.

I get why it's icky from a privacy standpoint.

Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#235

Post by bryanhogan »

wferrell wrote: post #222
bryanhogan wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That looks very interesting. I'm building almost the same actually: http://dailyselftrack.com/ Any reason your app is iOS only?

Are you going to have it be local only? I think you would be interested in seeing what Flo has done using OHTTP: https://oblivious.network/ohttp

It won't be local-only, it will be local-first. So you won't have to put your data online if you don't want to.

Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#236

Post by tempaccountabcd »

yesfitz wrote: post #197
duxup wrote: post #157

The article doesn't define what exactly they mean by "risks women safety". I don't buy into the idea that all or any advertising is a "safety" issue if that is where they're going. I think there's a very weird type of patronizing that goes on where suddenly we fear for everyone's ability to deal with advertising as if they've got no self control or agency ...

Third paragraph: "The report’s authors caution that cycle tracking app (CTA) data in the wrong hands could result in risks to job prospects, workplace monitoring, health insurance discrimination and cyberstalking – and limit access to abortion." If you want to trace the claims to their sources, you can read the full report from MCTD Cambridge here: https://www.mctd.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/The-High-S...

[dead]

Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#237

Post by giantg2 »

jedimastert wrote: post #129
giantg2 wrote: post #115

Did I miss the part where the data risks women's safety? I was particularly interested in that part of the headline, but I didn't see it detailed in the article.

Third paragraph: > The report’s authors caution that cycle tracking app (CTA) data in the wrong hands could result in risks to job prospects, workplace monitoring, health insurance discrimination and cyberstalking – and limit access to abortion. Did you miss it or are you disagreeing with these being a threat?

The cyberstalking is the most applicable, but I dont see what the menstral data would provide vs not having the mentstral data. A name and address could present a potential threat, but knowing which days someone is bleeding one doesn't seem to be useful in attacking someone unless you believe it makes them a weaker target or something.

The others aren't about safety. The one about restricting abortion is a false attribution as the laws would be the thing actually restricting it, not the use of the app.

I'm not saying the problems shouldn't be addressed, but claiming safety is at risk is a bit of a stretch.

Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#238

Post by NoTranslationL »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #232
NoTranslationL wrote: post #23

If anyone is interested in a privacy focused tracking app that stores all your data locally, I make an app called Reflect [0] whose sole purpose is this, plus on-device analysis. We’re working on a menstrual tracking feature right now and it’s pretty far along. We’ve just released an anomaly detection feature as well. [0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reflect-track-anything/id64638...

What kind of "analysis" is done on the data ? We have apps like mensinator that are very simple. I'd like to know if it is different from these simple apps ? Note: im a guy btw

Do you mean for menstrual data specifically?

Currently for general data there is pearson correlation, five different anomaly detection algorithms, and T tests for significance among other things.

The work in progress we have for menstrual tracking takes temperature, flow, and past grund truth data into account. I know that’s vague, and it’s because my partner is working on it, not me :)

When we release the cycle tracking we’ll have a full writeup

Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#239

Post by antiframe »

josephg wrote: post #152
1718627440 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no access to network ?

I wish this were a capability you could (as a user) grant or reject at will. But there’s a UI problem: people are sick of clicking accept on a million dialog boxes already.

Your wish exists. The first thing my phone asks before I install a new app is whether to allow network access or not.

Re: Menstrual tracking app data is gold mine for advertisers that risks women safety

#240

Post by JohnBooty »

mstridder1 wrote: post #215
freejazz wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a strawman. You said "mysterious circumstances" when we are talking about miscarriages. Do you think they are the same or not? It's a very simple question. >Do you not want police to investigate reports of someone disposing of human remains in a dumpster? What does this have to do with a miscarriage????

[flagged]

I find the "shouldn't we investigate dumping possible human remains into a dumpster?" question to be a red herring at best but: yes, sure, we should. I do not find it relevant to menstruation data captured by an application. If we have the remains, we know the age of the fetus or baby, and can prove whether a particular suspect is the mother of that fetus or baby.

    Obviously nobody's being investigated for routine miscarriages.
It is absolutely not at all obvious to me that this will continue to be the case, especially if the data to do so exists -- which is the central point of this discussion about why women would rightfully view the sharing of their menstrual data as a potential safety risk.

In fact the opposite is much more "obvious" to me: I think a lot of people in America (and elsewhere) would absolutely support such a thing.

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