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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

#261

Post by bluGill »

jajko wrote: post #214

One of reasons I am underwhelmed by all the smart sport watches. When eventually their DBs get hacked or they sell data willingly, I dont want my employer to see that I was running in the forest during lunch time, or my health insurance to see any circulatory anomaly if I had any. Fuck that, I will start ignoring that few years before retirement, not a second earlier. Its a shame, and I know people like me wont bend…

OTOH, my mom went to the doctors because her watch showed data that made no sense (aerobic exercise all day when she was at work - retail is not that much work), and that started the chain that eventually found her cancer early and thus it was more treatable and she in turn is alive.

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

#262

Post by wasimanitoba »

NoTranslationL wrote: post #218
pickledoyster wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What I mean by valid is that, without knowing all the information, skepticism is a good thing. Too many companies take a mile when you give an inch and take advantage of ambiguity. The SDK simply doesn’t exist as a product any more and so doesn’t make sense to keep on our website as an offering. So I’m glad you brought that to my attention. If there are any specifics about the privacy of Reflect you’d like me to eluc…

I appreciate your response, even if the other poster doesn't.

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

#263

Post by bethekidyouwant »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #247
bethekidyouwant wrote: post #243

So each government should make a period cycle app and ban private companies from doing the same? Or the WHO should make the app? Clearly such laws will never be passed in every country. Is this any different from using a point card at a store and buying prenatal vitamins or a pregnancy test? Even a credit card has this type of purchase information, even if they claim not to share direct personal info to advertisers.…

Ban all advertising on automatically collected data. Users who desire to may opt in by voluntarily providing information about themselves to get the most relevant ads. Apart from that, ads become targeting-free.

Pretty sure all the data for all targeted advertisement is automatically collected?

When I search for things on AliExpress, and then later browse the Internet, it shows me ads for those things.

Your solution sounds equivalent to banning all advertising on the Internet essentially when I do a Google search for something am I consenting to see ads for that thing?

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

#264

Post by bluGill »

rustcleaner wrote: post #208
fhdkweig wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a clarification for the "I didn't do anything wrong, I have nothing to hide" crowd, most of the time when someone is pregnant and then suddenly not pregnant, the cause is a miscarriage. And most people would go see a doctor if there is a lot of pain or bleeding. An overzealous prosecutor (usually running for election) is going to make the claim that you went to a doctor and now you aren't pregnant, you must have m…

Yep now instead of menstration cycles and abortion, replace it with antisemitism or grass-eaters or any other political disposition. You may be getting denied jobs because of posts you made to an anonymous imageboard which you thought were anonymous, but something like your Grammarly extension sent all your typed text up the pipe and now the corporate-state squid knows you're a wrongthinker full of thoughtcrime. Inte…

Try replacing it with something that wasn't even a concern years ago but now is the hot topic. Various things go in and out of style. Those harmless pranks you did as a kid that everyone laughed at then are now immoral and enough to get you on.

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

#265

Post by ToucanLoucan »

bethekidyouwant wrote: post #263
ToucanLoucan wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ban all advertising on automatically collected data. Users who desire to may opt in by voluntarily providing information about themselves to get the most relevant ads. Apart from that, ads become targeting-free.

Pretty sure all the data for all targeted advertisement is automatically collected? When I search for things on AliExpress, and then later browse the Internet, it shows me ads for those things. Your solution sounds equivalent to banning all advertising on the Internet essentially when I do a Google search for something am I consenting to see ads for that thing?

> Pretty sure all the data for all targeted advertisement is automatically collected?

Sure is.

> Your solution sounds equivalent to banning all advertising on the Internet

Not at all. We made targeted advertising a central pillar of the Internet before we realized what that meant. We've normalized the notion of being spied on on the Internet at all times, but that's a choice we made (or perhaps didn't make) that can be remade.

Every regulation on big business in the history of big business has been whined and bitched and complained about. Corporations swore they could never survive paying negroes the same as whites. Same for not being able to employ children. Same for being made to employ women and other minorities. On and on.

Regulations get passed, society benefits. More often than not the corpos do too, even if they refuse to acknowledge it.

Advertising, including online, existed long before targeting existed. It can exist again. I'm sure there will be pain but I have absolute faith in the tech industry, which employs most of if not all the best minds in my generation, to solve the problem. What they lack is a reason to.

> essentially when I do a Google search for something am I consenting to see ads for that thing?

... yes?

Edit: Also just like... you make it sound like there's NO WAY at ALL to "aim" your advertisements without a surveillance apparatus. It's ridiculous.

* Recommendations based on purchase history: any given retailer can do this without running afoul of privacy regulations. Why not?

* Contextual recommendations: Are you trying to sell drone parts? Cool, advertise on drone enthusiast forums and Facebook groups, and use the hashtags in other social media for those things.

* Make Newsletters actually good: Put up a newsletter about your products. If it's quality work that doesn't hit my inbox EVERY SINGLE DAY, I would sign up for it.

Like there are ways to advertise products in targeted ways without spying on people and creeping the fuck out of your potential customers. You just... treat them like people you have an ounce of respect for? Not sentient wallets you're trying to shake every last penny out of.

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

#266

Post by giantg2 »

jedimastert wrote: post #253
giantg2 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 attr…

> 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. I have other things to say here but immediately this is a wildly gross and sexist way to phrase this. > The others aren't about safety > risks to job prospects, workplace monitoring, health insurance discrimination A threat to livelihood and proper health care is a…

"A threat to livelihood and proper health care is a threat to safety, and the fact that you don't recognize that should hopefully trigger some amount of self-reflection."

A threat to livelihood is not a direct threat to safety. If we take this indirect route of logic, it can be applied to anything. Furthermore, how is it a threat to livelihood? Don't we have protected statuses for pregnant women in employment law?

"Beyond that the fact that you can't make the really simple connection between knowing someone's menstrual cycle and knowing their pregnancy status means I deeply hope you take some time to self-reflect and maybe consider that you don't quite have the tools to engage in a nuance conversation about this and should instead take some time to listen to others"

I'm asking legitimate questions, but I'm getting emotional responses instead of logical ones. You're making implications here about menstrual vs pregnancy status but not forming an actual response about them.

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

#267

Post by wagwang »

crazygringo wrote: post #127
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #89

They don't need apps to do this. I sat in a meeting with a data broker in 1998 where one of their managers was chuffed that they could determine menstrual cycles by analyzing purchasing records. And it wasn't hygiene products. Various foods and other spending patterns pop out after a 28-day correlation over groups of women that are artificially "synced" into cohort groups. This invasiveness will continue so long as t…

Can you elaborate? Because even with hygiene products, people buy them before they need them and stock up. And with food, you're often shopping for a week and for the whole family. You put things on a shopping list and don't buy them the same day you're using them, or even the same week. I suspect that even if the manager thought they could determine it, their actual "results" were entirely random. After all, how is…

You're making a lot of assumptions there. The guy probably had a training dataset with real cycle data and shopping data and went off of that.

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

#269

Post by mensetmanusman »

RajT88 wrote: post #55
mensetmanusman wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which section code?

Miscarriages are spontaneous abortions. The anti-abortion laws are being used against women who have miscarriages.

Miscarriages are not spontaneous abortions to those in the medical field. Sorry if the terms are confusing though.

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

#270

Post by mensetmanusman »

watwut wrote: post #59
mensetmanusman wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which section code?

When miscarriage happens, you will be hit with non-miscarriage section and unable to prove it was miscarriage. Or, you will prove it only after your life was significantly altered and you had to spend a lot of money. Like common. This literally happens in conservative states. And women are also literally dying or suffering there for preventable medical issues, because doctors are afraid to abort even when they know i…

The common cases I looked into turned out to be misreported on.

Unfortunately all the mainstream media lie with a smile (as we saw with “Biden is so smart!” coverage from the NYT etc. over the last year), so it’s getting hard to know what’s happening…

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