Flo period tracker sells user data to Meta and Google
(femtechdesigndesk.substack.com)
from damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world to privacy@lemmy.ml on 28 Apr 13:54
https://lemmy.world/post/46165590
from damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world to privacy@lemmy.ml on 28 Apr 13:54
https://lemmy.world/post/46165590
What the actual fuck. How can we trust any third party app ever? I guess we can’t.
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Is there anything FOSS like this?
There are a few:
I’m not a user of any of those, but from descriptions and screenshots alone they look decent.
Mensinator is a “gets the job done” sort of app. The notifications don’t really work for me though, which is a bummer.
I use Drip for basic cycle tracking. I don’t use it for fertile phase tracking so no comment there.
For cycle tracking, it does what it needs to do. It’s easy enough to setup and completely forget what tracker/spyware I used to use. Heck, I think it was Flo I used to use.
And f-droid or another alternative app stores not mandatory, Drip is on the Google Play store at least. Not sure about Apple.
Use softwares that are open sourced and be happy. There’s plenty of period tracking apps on F-Droid.
Open sourced softwares can’t hide trackers from users since the source code must be up-to-date. If not, people will be suspicious. And if a open sourced software do use trackers, the community will complain… a lot!
Just checked out both drip and Bluemoon, both FOSS from F-Droid with local only data
Bluemoon lets you import data from Flo, but to export data from Flo, you need to make an account with Flo, it seems. (It also let’s you import data from Clue, but I don’t use Clue.)
drip lets you import data just from a CSV file, nothing that seems specific to any app format. So far I like drip a lot better, TBH; the UI is more intuitive to me, and it seems more featureful. Its prediction also lines up with Flo after putting in data since January.
However, I have just downloaded both apps. My plan is to keep Flo around for one more cycle while I compare it to the others, then kick Flo to the curb for becoming enshittified spyware, with sad nostalgia for the life-changing product it originally was to me.
Right now, I am not seeing luteal vs. follicular phase estimated with just period data on either, though, which is annoying. I want a rough sense for the purposes of some tailored nutritional stuff, but I’m not looking to get pregnant or anything and really do not wish to bother with the trouble of taking daily temperatures. Flo currently gives me that. I know it’s basically just adding 15 days but I still like having the at a glance feature.
EDIT: Adding Mensinator, another FOSS one on F-Droid, to the trial. Looks like this one offers an import feature, but I have no idea what format it’s expecting, because it couldn’t find my export from Bluemoon. Mensinator does provide the option to just mark a day as ovulation, which neither Bluemoon nor drip offer. It does at least seem like drip tells you if you’re in the first or second half of your cycle on the individual day profile for the day of, but I want something I can use for meal planning. Mensinator may be the best suited for me so far, but I will give them all time.
Also, bafflingly, when I attempted to export my data from drip, it provided me a “share file” option to share the .csv file without a simple option to just…download it.
For that last part - my workaround for this style of UX issue is to share to Material Files (save as) which saves it to the downloads folder.
Closed source doesn’t necessarily hide trackers either. Tracker Control (on Android) will point out tracker libraries and tracker domains closed source apps use. A good DNS blocker will let you know too by the logs.
I agree but most open-source software will not add any trackers because even if they did someone will fork and remove them also lot of open-source apps like this won’t even have internet access to sell your data
Ayup, hopefully. But there’s a cultural aspect to that IMO. For that to work, we need enough people invested in doing that. Which can be hard and ongoing work! Say I fork an app. Unless I want to “hostile take over” the whole devel, now I’ve got to keep rolling in updates. Sometimes those can interact with the changes I made in my fork and automated merges don’t handle it. It can be thankless work.
We’re lucky at the mo, with OSS. It’s a tech heavy crowd. That helps a LOT to keep the culture from enshittifying. There’s a lot of good faith volunteering around. But that’s a fragile thing.
Oh for sure. My comment was just to say just because it’s closed source doesn’t mean you can’t get some sense of what they’re trying to do behind the scenes with your data.
A lot of women had stopped using these types of apps ever since the forced birthers overturned Roe, knowing this type of thing could be used against them.
Because of course they would sell this data, fuck all these people
And this where I as a trolling CIS male might be able to do some good
The idea of putting this info on my phone has always seemed bonkers to me. Just keep a journal of it, on paper, if this is so critical for you to know for some reason. My daughter used to use one but she deleted it as soon as the Roe v Wade stuff happened, she had no reason to be using it anyway
The idea that putting this on your phone is bonkers is bonkers to me. Why would you want to carry around a journal or paper when you have everything on your phone? It can also be more easily backed up and synced.
It shouldn’t be normal that this data is stolen and sold. That is 100% the problem, not the fact that people track things on computers.
it shouldn’t be, but that’s the world we live in. we can’t change it anymore.
No, but you can still choose to choose software that doesn’t steal and sell your data. You can also support laws that make doing this illegal.
I can, but most people don’t even know where to look for them. Definitely not the play store
Imagine that nobody earned money with this mine of women working for free. What a wasted product
I love fucking up their data.
Haha, bitches I had no ovaries to begin with, and now you think I’m ovulating soon!
Mwahahaha :3
We can’t trust any of them. They’ll sell it to the government for those pregnancy lists too, to combat abortion.
The lying the app did in their priv policy is shitty behavior. But not unusual behavior.
The phone app ecosystem is a hot mess of treachery.
and now they know about you lot what you not)))))))
so the pentagon has it
.
“What are you feeling today?”
“egg white”
“c r e a m y”
That makes me feel creamy…
Poison the data. It’s time for all you men to go log your manstrual cycle.