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Comment by ziddoap | Hacker News Reader

>Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to: Email address, First name and last name, Usage Data

>Usage Data is collected automatically when using the Service

>Usage Data may include information such as Your Device's Internet Protocol address (e.g. IP address), browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that You visit, the time and date of Your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers and other diagnostic data.

>We may share Your information with Our business partners to offer You certain products, services or promotions.

https://www.eartho.io/legal/privacy-policy

And so on...

Where does this company get the audacity to claim they are privacy-focused?

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Laughably, the privacy policy states in several areas that they only collect, share, or retain data consistent with the privacy policy. E.g.

> The Company will retain Your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.

And the privacy policy essentially provides for every purpose they would want to use your data. Sharing, for example:

> With Affiliates: We may share Your information with Our affiliates, in which case we will require those affiliates to honor this Privacy Policy. Affiliates include Our parent company and any other subsidiaries, joint venture partners or other companies that We control or that are under common control with Us.

> With business partners: We may share Your information with Our business partners to offer You certain products, services or promotions.

Pretty egregious.

https://www.eartho.io/legal/privacy-policy

As an aside, I’ve started reviewing companies’ privacy policies, terms of service, etc. before I decide to sign up. This is coming from someone who has previously just clicked “I Agree” to whatever terms are there on signup (be nice).

If you haven't heard of it, "Terms of Service; Didn't Read" (https://tosdr.org/) can be a helpful addition to your review process.

Obviously not every site is covered, and you may want to review the terms yourself anyways, but I've found it pretty useful when I'm not in the mood to read thousands of words of legalese.

Amazing thank you for this.

Aside-aside: I used to run a service called TOS Salad (probably even posted it here like 15 years ago) that monitored these policies and sent notifications when they changed. It was pretty crude stuff, mostly munging stuff with perl, but the notion was to detect key provisions that should be considered and material differences when things changed. With today's LLMs, it would be a lot better. I don't know if I'll pick it up again, but maybe someone else is inspired...

At least they are up-front about it. Most copmanies are as bad or worse but hide it in their privacy policy with weasel words and lawyer speak.

The title says "privacy-focused". The first bullet point of the features section in github says:

>Your personal data is yours alone. With Eartho, your information stays private—no tracking, no sharing.

Their opening paragraph claims "privacy-first" and "prioritizes user privacy".

Compare that to the privacy policy, and then please explain to me how they are up-front about it.

But they aren't, because they claim they are privacy focused.

I'm [name-redacted], the guy who started this project.

We’re just getting started, and regarding privacy, I chose these terms to cover all bases and give us room to mistakes, learn and improve. Our intentions are good, and as the project evolves, we’ll continue to make things better.

Thanks for the understanding!

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