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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Intimate data, including when people have had sex, is being shared with Facebook, a study from Privacy International has suggested.
It included details such as what contraception was used, when periods were due and the type of symptoms experienced.
Since the investigation, one app said it was changing its privacy policies.
Menstruation apps collect some of the most intimate data imaginable - from general health, to information about sex, moods, what the user eats, drinks and even what sanitary products she uses.
In exchange for this, the app will offer the user the dates of the month she is most fertile or when to expect her next period.
Sharing to Facebook happens via the social network's software development kit (SDK), tools that can be used by apps to help them make money by reaching advertisers who, in turn, provide users with personalised ads.
PI found the most popular apps in this category - Period Tracker, Period Track Flo and Clue Period Tracker did not share data with Facebook.
But others - such as Maya by Plackal Tech (which has 5 million downloads on Google Play), MIA by Mobapp Development Limited (1 million downloads) and My Period Tracker by Linchpin Health (more than 1 million downloads) - did.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 11 2019, @04:53AM (2 children)
We all know everything is being mined and shared. The majority of people don't care and they continue using these services/apps regardless of how many articles like this they read. I'm not even sure the problem can be resolved with legislation at this point. Hell, Facebook was recently dragged before Congress and slapped with a massive fine that resulted in nearly zero change. Turns out that massive fine was still too insignificant to matter; cost of doing business and business is oh so gooood!
Show of hands, who here closed their FB account after the last major scandal? Doesn't matter, the total number is so small it's practically a rounding error in the stats. The entire US population could close their FB account and it would barely dent the machine. Same will be true for the women using the menstruation app. A bit of outrage followed by a hollow apology and promise to do better by the company, but no meaningful action will result.
/ * end rant */
(Score: 3, Interesting) by maxwell demon on Wednesday September 11 2019, @07:20AM
Couldn't do it. Never opened one.
I doubt that. If the entire US population closed their FB accounts, I'm pretty sure FB would be in deep trouble.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 11 2019, @07:29PM
We know that. The majority of people, probably not. And even if they do, they lack the tech savvy to distinguish ways of using a compute that preserve their privacy from ones that violate it. If the message they get is "if you exist in the modern world, you have no privacy", then there's nothing actionable there.
BTW, while the issue in the article is about data being shared with Facebook, there's no mention of Facebook on the user side. The app developer shared information with Facebook through their ad personalization.