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

cam.ac.uk

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

#271

Post by crazygringo »

wagwang wrote: post #267
crazygringo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am, but that's because this is 1998. Where would you ever get such a training dataset with real cycle data tied to shopping data? Menstrual tracking apps weren't a thing then. And any anonymized medical studies that actually did such tracking certainly couldn't have been correlated with identifiable shopping data, I would think.

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

#272

Post by an_guy »

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…

[flagged]

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

#273

Post by mhluongo »

We've incubated a private, local-first menstrual tracking app!

My partner is the founder. She's a PMDD sufferer who needed a proper, science-first tracker to treat her hormonal symptoms. After Roe, she didn't feel like she had any options but to build her own app — Embody.

We're getting ready for a security audit and to take it open source. Would love any feedback!

https://embody.space

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

#274

Post by rfrey »

pickledoyster wrote: post #209
NoTranslationL wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a totally valid concern. Initially we were considering augmenting our income with a B2B model to license the library we’ve built, but that didn’t pan out and our priorities have changed, so we solely work on the apps for customers now. I actually forgot this was even on our website and, since we aren’t trying to offer those services or license anymore, I’ve removed them.

[flagged]

This comment is so cynical, and not in some cool, edgy way.

I made an honest attempt, but I could not find a way to read the response in a way that your interpretation makes sense.

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

#275

Post by wand3r »

While unlikely, I personally believe that advertising revenue should be taxed at 50%. This would do a lot to align industry incentives. Advertising revenue would be looked at less as a free cash stream that can be bolted on everywhere. In this case, maybe the app could be monetized directly instead of whatever the fuck is happening now.

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

#276

Post by crazygringo »

bluGill wrote: post #255
crazygringo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

While I expect most women buy in advance, I expect they also don't buy enough and so are out there mid-period at least some of the time. Their cycles also affect their buying patterns, so even women who are stocking up are more likely to buy differently in different parts of the cycle. The real question is what does the manager do with the data. Across a city on any given day there are about the same number of women…

> The real question is what does the manager do with the data.

Direct-mail (or these days, in-app with notifications) coupons. If you know you'll pay full price at CVS, but it's 30% off at Rite-Aid, you'll go to Rite-Aid and buy other stuff as long as you're making the trip.

I mean, maybe there really are enough women buying last-minute to be able to predict, at least for those women -- and identify who those women are.

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

#277

Post by gopher_space »

tiahura wrote: post #114

The article doesn't explain how their safety is at risk.

Women do not have legal autonomy over their bodies in the US, and health data especially dealing with reproductive matters has been used to target individuals.

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

#278

Post by AStonesThrow »

ubermonkey wrote: post #56

In the current climate, no one should use a menstrual tracking app of any kind, even those with on-device-only data. Asking normal people to figure out the risk profile of that data, and to evaluate the trustworthiness of a given app, is just too much. Use a paper calendar.

[dead]

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

#279

Post by mrweasel »

ubermonkey wrote: post #56

In the current climate, no one should use a menstrual tracking app of any kind, even those with on-device-only data. Asking normal people to figure out the risk profile of that data, and to evaluate the trustworthiness of a given app, is just too much. Use a paper calendar.

> Use a paper calendar.

Well yes and no. I do see what you're getting at, but in certain environments, e.g. abusive relationships, it might be easier to keep you secrets on your phone. You're more likely to be able to keep track of it at all times, as compared to a notebooks or a calendar. It can also store years of data easily. Ideally storing these things in the cloud would be safer that storing them on device or on paper, but that assumes that the cloud providers can be trusted.

So in this case the menstrual tracking app would be a cloud service that only you have access to. Data stored encrypted, only to be unlocked when you access it. It's just, you can't monetize that easily and how would people who truly need 100% privacy pay? Bitcoin, how would they get Bitcoins?

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