Your Menstrual App Is Probably Selling Data About Your Body | Hacker News Reader

Your Menstrual App Is Probably Selling Data About Your Body

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28 pointsandrewxhill15 comments

When you’re not paying for it, you’re the product being sold - no surprise here.

I’m also curious as to why people insist on using shady third-party apps for this while their phone’s OS already comes with a perfectly functional Health app.

There are a number of apps that go a lot further than this - aiming to either tell you the best possible time to concieve, or alternatively the opposite claiming to be a very effective contraceptive, just by tracking the days you shouldn't have sex.

I'm guessing Apple and other big manufacturers wouldn't want the PR associated with some unplanned pregnancies!

Recommending times to avoid getting pregnant is essentially just the rythm method isn’t it? That has been shown to not work :-/

That said bizarre squeamishness of america about anything related to periods I’m sure there are issues with just having UI for such things :-/

Of old, yes - but I think the newer round of these are meant to go much further - eg. including a thermometer to measure body temperatures, etc.

I think it was this article I remember reading a while ago that went into some of them...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/oct/15/can-apps-pro...

> When you’re not paying for it, you’re the product being sold

You're not the product being sold - data about you is the product being sold. You are much more than that data. I find it either dishonest or extremely cynical to suggest that data about people is equivalent with people themselves.

The end goal is to “sell” the user to some advertiser in hopes that the user is stupid/desperate enough to buy the advertised garbage.

Data is just the method used to achieve that goal - if it wasn’t for that then data by itself would be worthless.

Would you say that you are a product, when you watch a trailer for a movie? According to your definition, the end goal of a trailer also is to "sell" the user to the film studio in hopes that the user will buy the ticket.

People use the "you're the product" quote strictly in reference to targeted ads, not in reference to any activity which has the end goal of convincing the user to make a purchase. That means it is not about the end goal at all - it is about our data which is sold without our permission. The data is the product they sell.

If I looked up the trailer myself? No, because I already had interest in the movie and wanted to see more to decide if it's worth buying.

If I didn't ask for anything and an app/website suddenly shows me the trailer? Absolutely - that app/website is selling my attention as the product, and my middle finger suddenly rises as I close the tab or tweak my ad blocker to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Well, then it looks like our definitions of a product differ.

However, I believe this shows how the "you're the product" phrase diverts attention - now you're talking about ads in general, but that's not what people rally against. The problem is about collecting and selling our personal data without our agreement and knowledge, not about showing you some random popup. The latter, as you mentioned, can be easily blocked and won't cost you more than a few seconds of your attention, but loss of control over your data may have far more serious effects (e.g. if that data ends up in insurance companies, who suddenly decide that your data profile matches some high risk group of people).

The distinction you're making is not particularly interesting. Of course they don't literally sell people.

Then why call it as such? Yes, I know it is a catchy phrase which invokes emotional response, but I think it diverts attention from the core of the problem.

Well maybe I'm not appreciating the core of the problem. What is it, as you see it?

The core of the problem obviously is the fact of sharing our data without our permission and/or knowledge.

The issue I have with that phrase is that it is basically an appeal to emotion; it doesn't focus on dialogue about why such unrestricted sharing of data is bad and what can be done about it, but rather it encourages feeling of helplessness ("I'm a product, owned and sold by corporations").

I see what you're saying. I guess it's an attempt to provoke outrage, but like many other such tactics it can just as easily lead to apathy, if it's not accompanied by actionable information for example.

As everyone here knows, this is repeated frequently here. But I think it's important to note that even if you are paying for something. Most likely, you are also the product.

Paying for a service and getting your data sold are not mutually exclusive.

Many (most?) companies that you pay are also making additional money by selling your data.

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