Hacker News Reader

Comment by amatecha | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, this is why I actually read the privacy policy on every app I install now. I've done this for the past 6mo or so. At this point I basically don't purchase apps that store any of my information on their servers (unless of course it's fundamentally required for the service, such as Spotify or the like).

View on HN

I'm a bit confused. Shouldn't there be equal concern for apps that _share_ data with third-parties? The first-party app doesn't need to store any of the information in that case; they just hand it off in-transit.

And have you had any luck with installing apps with such criteria? I'm on a similar boat, and primarily use F-Droid apps.

Oh, yeah of course sharing data with 3rd parties is even more "nope" than just storing it themselves.

The last app I looked at to consider purchasing, "Clear Todos", which was highly-reputed at some point? Their Privacy Policy link in App Store actually hits a 404 error page. To say the least, I almost never purchase anything from App Store these days. It's a pretty dire landscape, but I'm tired of "being the product", and I am willing to give up a lot of stuff to lessen how often my information is used/stored/profited from.

> unless of course it's fundamentally required for the service, such as Spotify or the like

Spotify does not need to track what you listen to, in order to stream music to you!

Oh yeah, for sure. Though they do need to store the "Library" I've saved, and the playlists I've created (for example).

Not really. You could do that locally. All they need to do is stream what you request.

What do you do about the mobile apps which don't store your data themselves, but share it with various third parties?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com