It is funded by Mozilla and Open Knowledge Foundation. Available on iOS and Android.
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NoTranslationL
If anyone is interested in a privacy focused tracking app that stores all your data locally, I make an app called Reflect [0] whose sole purpose is this, plus on-device analysis.
We’re working on a menstrual tracking feature right now and it’s pretty far along. We’ve just released an anomaly detection feature as well.
While unlikely, I personally believe that advertising revenue should be taxed at 50%. This would do a lot to align industry incentives. Advertising revenue would be looked at less as a free cash stream that can be bolted on everywhere. In this case, maybe the app could be monetized directly instead of whatever the fuck is happening now.
show comments
gbacon
A fascinating chapter in The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg describes market-basket analytics at Target. They wanted to be able to determine whether a shopper is pregnant because that is an event that they believed women to be willing to reconsider their otherwise steadfast shopping brand loyalty. They got too good at their target ad mailers and so had to throw in decoys like motor oil and lawn equipment.
The tipoff for expecting women was purchases of larger quantities of lotion and washrags.
kevin_thibedeau
They don't need apps to do this. I sat in a meeting with a data broker in 1998 where one of their managers was chuffed that they could determine menstrual cycles by analyzing purchasing records. And it wasn't hygiene products. Various foods and other spending patterns pop out after a 28-day correlation over groups of women that are artificially "synced" into cohort groups.
This invasiveness will continue so long as there are no consumer data protection laws.
I gave up talking about stuff like this to average people. Whenever I bring stuff like this up, they just get mad and tell they have nothing to hide. This business model will never die, but at least alternatives exhist
All of the apps that showed up in the search store data locally. Why would anyone not want to store this sort of data locally? What is the advantage of sending the data off to a server somewhere?
show comments
Aeolun
Can anyone tell me why this would be as much of a problem for safety as they are saying?
The only thing I can see happening is easier selling of pads and tampons during a certain phase of the moon. Apparently this is what the article suggests too, that certain things are easier to sell at a certain point in the cycle.
It’d be embarrassing if someone knew, not dangerous. And even that much feels weird to me for a very well known biological function.
show comments
bethekidyouwant
So each government should make a period cycle app and ban private companies from doing the same? Or the WHO should make the app? Clearly such laws will never be passed in every country. Is this any different from using a point card at a store and buying prenatal vitamins or a pregnancy test? Even a credit card has this type of purchase information, even if they claim not to share direct personal info to advertisers. I would say let users consent when they download an app and leave it in their hands to decide
show comments
mhluongo
We've incubated a private, local-first menstrual tracking app!
My partner is the founder. She's a PMDD sufferer who needed a proper, science-first tracker to treat her hormonal symptoms. After Roe, she didn't feel like she had any options but to build her own app — Embody.
We're getting ready for a security audit and to take it open source. Would love any feedback!
If there’s something I’m looking forward with end to end vibe coding tools like Github Spark, Lovable and others is getting rid of these suckers.
It would be easier to provide similar functionalities and customize them without major issues. Yes, it’s still not seamless enough for your average user but it’s heading in the right direction.
yumraj
Curious does anyone know of a app/tool that can ingest a dump of your medical records, across platforms and EHR/EMRs and providers, and show it to you?
Ideally this would be local, or self-hostable, and FOSS, but am still curious if it is not that.
show comments
grvdrm
I didn't see any apps mentioned but my naive question for this space:
Are there any subscription-only apps out there that don't advertise at all (in app) and if they do it is based entirely on anonymized broader categories rather than individual targeting?
cqwww
At ConsentKeys.com we're already working on integrating with a menstrual tracking app (can't mention until the ink is dry), but we're a good fit for apps concerned with blow back like this as the apps that use us will never get the real personal information of the users in exchange for us offering to place them in our privacy centric marketplace (exposure) as well as de-risking themselves as a business, as well as de-risking their users from a data breach (or their information being sold/shared).
Vendors also contractually agree to not try to assemble data in a way to try to identify their users as it makes no sense to use us unless you want to be privacy prioritized.
stuaxo
This category of app should absolutely be offline first.
If the data is shared it needs to be controlled by the user every time and not in a way that automatically goes to advertisers.
brainzap
You can track it in iOS without extra apps.
Zaylan
It’s honestly kind of disturbing. Period tracking apps used to feel like a helpful tool, but now they feel more like surveillance. Most people have no idea their most personal data might end up in an ad network.
What we really need is stronger default privacy, not just longer consent forms. I’d love to see more apps that are local-first and don’t upload anything by default.
sandra_vu
I have been thinking about building a privacy-first tracking app for years now.
It is painfully evident sometimes that America desperatelyl needs a GDPR-like federal law. The state-by-state laws are by nature peicemeal and it makes for a wild west of outright PII abuse.
show comments
JohnBooty
For those wondering why this is a safety issue, in many American states abortion or "fetal harm" is considered murder. You can be imprisoned, theoretically for life. This is of course a rapidly evolving area of law since the fall of Roe v. Wade. Having one's menstrual data available for subpoena is therefore quite a literal safety risk.
"At least 38 states authorize homicide charges for causing pregnancy loss"
Probably the best one-liner fix in law I can think of, is to make it a imprisonable felony to give money to someone or an organization for the purpose of speaking a particular message as their own, and accepting money in exchange for speaking a message as your own. Basically ban advertising, or at least make each commercial basically say "General Motors has paid us to tell you that ... ... ..." instead of the sexy seductive style we have today. Ads, if they are to exist at all, should be limited to factual/quantitative statements about performance and reliability, and must not use any suggestive/qualitative statements. We need to make the various pillars of modern advertising criminal offenses: the main one is the use of psychological/memetic trickery to spread and make memorable a message for commercial purposes, then there's the financial incentive to shit up our cyberspaces with sponsored messages. The only place I should EVER EVER EEEVERRR find an advertisement for (say) a plumber, should be in the local directory for businesses under the plumbing section, and the list must be sortable and filterable by basic transparent criteria (no hidden magic feed algorithms).
It is legal to swindle someone in this country, so long as they get swindled enthusiastically and don't think they got swindled. I think being induced to buy a hamburger at midnight by a well placed ad, instead of just reheating some left-overs, is a swindling even if your dependency on this model for your economic survival has you kneejerking on me! The goal is we all turn into self-sufficient economic agents, not be labor-cattle induced by advertising memes to go into interest bearing debt by a thousand little charges.
show comments
duxup
The article doesn't define what exactly they mean by "risks women safety".
I don't buy into the idea that all or any advertising is a "safety" issue if that is where they're going. I think there's a very weird type of patronizing that goes on where suddenly we fear for everyone's ability to deal with advertising as if they've got no self control or agency ...
show comments
giantg2
Did I miss the part where the data risks women's safety? I was particularly interested in that part of the headline, but I didn't see it detailed in the article.
show comments
frakt0x90
As usual, we need laws preventing gross (in every sense) invasions of privacy. Building new apps that aren't evil still allows the evil ones to exist. Targeted advertising as a whole should be eradicated.
show comments
voidUpdate
> arguing that apps must provide clear consent options rather than all-or-nothing data collection
What's wrong with "nothing"? Other than the companies not being able to squeeze a few more dollars out of selling user data, of course
show comments
bArray
Combine this with the Meta Pixel illegal localhost tracking that bypasses privacy measures [1] [2] and the privacy leaking could be off the scale.
I think this goes for all things - medical data such as heart rate, blood sugar, steps, weight, VO2 max, etc, could all be seriously misused.
Personally I try to use apps that are not cloud-based, or make my own, but this isn't an option for everybody.
In the current climate, no one should use a menstrual tracking app of any kind, even those with on-device-only data. Asking normal people to figure out the risk profile of that data, and to evaluate the trustworthiness of a given app, is just too much.
Use a paper calendar.
show comments
tiahura
The article doesn't explain how their safety is at risk.
show comments
jajko
One of reasons I am underwhelmed by all the smart sport watches. When eventually their DBs get hacked or they sell data willingly, I dont want my employer to see that I was running in the forest during lunch time, or my health insurance to see any circulatory anomaly if I had any.
Fuck that, I will start ignoring that few years before retirement, not a second earlier. Its a shame, and I know people like me wont bend the direction we firmly head towards
There's a FOSS alternative called Drip.
https://dripapp.org/
It is funded by Mozilla and Open Knowledge Foundation. Available on iOS and Android.
If anyone is interested in a privacy focused tracking app that stores all your data locally, I make an app called Reflect [0] whose sole purpose is this, plus on-device analysis.
We’re working on a menstrual tracking feature right now and it’s pretty far along. We’ve just released an anomaly detection feature as well.
[0] https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reflect-track-anything/id64638...
While unlikely, I personally believe that advertising revenue should be taxed at 50%. This would do a lot to align industry incentives. Advertising revenue would be looked at less as a free cash stream that can be bolted on everywhere. In this case, maybe the app could be monetized directly instead of whatever the fuck is happening now.
A fascinating chapter in The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg describes market-basket analytics at Target. They wanted to be able to determine whether a shopper is pregnant because that is an event that they believed women to be willing to reconsider their otherwise steadfast shopping brand loyalty. They got too good at their target ad mailers and so had to throw in decoys like motor oil and lawn equipment.
The tipoff for expecting women was purchases of larger quantities of lotion and washrags.
They don't need apps to do this. I sat in a meeting with a data broker in 1998 where one of their managers was chuffed that they could determine menstrual cycles by analyzing purchasing records. And it wasn't hygiene products. Various foods and other spending patterns pop out after a 28-day correlation over groups of women that are artificially "synced" into cohort groups.
This invasiveness will continue so long as there are no consumer data protection laws.
at this point it is already pretty known but mozilla read the tos of some of the most used period apps and analyzed it https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/privacynotincluded/cate...
I gave up talking about stuff like this to average people. Whenever I bring stuff like this up, they just get mad and tell they have nothing to hide. This business model will never die, but at least alternatives exhist
A relevant f-droid search:
* https://search.f-droid.org/?q=Menstrual
All of the apps that showed up in the search store data locally. Why would anyone not want to store this sort of data locally? What is the advantage of sending the data off to a server somewhere?
Can anyone tell me why this would be as much of a problem for safety as they are saying?
The only thing I can see happening is easier selling of pads and tampons during a certain phase of the moon. Apparently this is what the article suggests too, that certain things are easier to sell at a certain point in the cycle.
It’d be embarrassing if someone knew, not dangerous. And even that much feels weird to me for a very well known biological function.
So each government should make a period cycle app and ban private companies from doing the same? Or the WHO should make the app? Clearly such laws will never be passed in every country. Is this any different from using a point card at a store and buying prenatal vitamins or a pregnancy test? Even a credit card has this type of purchase information, even if they claim not to share direct personal info to advertisers. I would say let users consent when they download an app and leave it in their hands to decide
We've incubated a private, local-first menstrual tracking app!
My partner is the founder. She's a PMDD sufferer who needed a proper, science-first tracker to treat her hormonal symptoms. After Roe, she didn't feel like she had any options but to build her own app — Embody.
We're getting ready for a security audit and to take it open source. Would love any feedback!
https://embody.space
If there’s something I’m looking forward with end to end vibe coding tools like Github Spark, Lovable and others is getting rid of these suckers. It would be easier to provide similar functionalities and customize them without major issues. Yes, it’s still not seamless enough for your average user but it’s heading in the right direction.
Curious does anyone know of a app/tool that can ingest a dump of your medical records, across platforms and EHR/EMRs and providers, and show it to you?
Ideally this would be local, or self-hostable, and FOSS, but am still curious if it is not that.
I didn't see any apps mentioned but my naive question for this space:
Are there any subscription-only apps out there that don't advertise at all (in app) and if they do it is based entirely on anonymized broader categories rather than individual targeting?
At ConsentKeys.com we're already working on integrating with a menstrual tracking app (can't mention until the ink is dry), but we're a good fit for apps concerned with blow back like this as the apps that use us will never get the real personal information of the users in exchange for us offering to place them in our privacy centric marketplace (exposure) as well as de-risking themselves as a business, as well as de-risking their users from a data breach (or their information being sold/shared). Vendors also contractually agree to not try to assemble data in a way to try to identify their users as it makes no sense to use us unless you want to be privacy prioritized.
This category of app should absolutely be offline first.
If the data is shared it needs to be controlled by the user every time and not in a way that automatically goes to advertisers.
You can track it in iOS without extra apps.
It’s honestly kind of disturbing. Period tracking apps used to feel like a helpful tool, but now they feel more like surveillance. Most people have no idea their most personal data might end up in an ad network.
What we really need is stronger default privacy, not just longer consent forms. I’d love to see more apps that are local-first and don’t upload anything by default.
I have been thinking about building a privacy-first tracking app for years now.
Planned Parenthood makes one
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spotontrac...
Only for advertisers that risk women's safety?
It is painfully evident sometimes that America desperatelyl needs a GDPR-like federal law. The state-by-state laws are by nature peicemeal and it makes for a wild west of outright PII abuse.
For those wondering why this is a safety issue, in many American states abortion or "fetal harm" is considered murder. You can be imprisoned, theoretically for life. This is of course a rapidly evolving area of law since the fall of Roe v. Wade. Having one's menstrual data available for subpoena is therefore quite a literal safety risk.
"At least 38 states authorize homicide charges for causing pregnancy loss"
https://www.law.cuny.edu/academics/clinical-programs/hrgj/pr...
Probably the best one-liner fix in law I can think of, is to make it a imprisonable felony to give money to someone or an organization for the purpose of speaking a particular message as their own, and accepting money in exchange for speaking a message as your own. Basically ban advertising, or at least make each commercial basically say "General Motors has paid us to tell you that ... ... ..." instead of the sexy seductive style we have today. Ads, if they are to exist at all, should be limited to factual/quantitative statements about performance and reliability, and must not use any suggestive/qualitative statements. We need to make the various pillars of modern advertising criminal offenses: the main one is the use of psychological/memetic trickery to spread and make memorable a message for commercial purposes, then there's the financial incentive to shit up our cyberspaces with sponsored messages. The only place I should EVER EVER EEEVERRR find an advertisement for (say) a plumber, should be in the local directory for businesses under the plumbing section, and the list must be sortable and filterable by basic transparent criteria (no hidden magic feed algorithms).
It is legal to swindle someone in this country, so long as they get swindled enthusiastically and don't think they got swindled. I think being induced to buy a hamburger at midnight by a well placed ad, instead of just reheating some left-overs, is a swindling even if your dependency on this model for your economic survival has you kneejerking on me! The goal is we all turn into self-sufficient economic agents, not be labor-cattle induced by advertising memes to go into interest bearing debt by a thousand little charges.
The article doesn't define what exactly they mean by "risks women safety".
I don't buy into the idea that all or any advertising is a "safety" issue if that is where they're going. I think there's a very weird type of patronizing that goes on where suddenly we fear for everyone's ability to deal with advertising as if they've got no self control or agency ...
Did I miss the part where the data risks women's safety? I was particularly interested in that part of the headline, but I didn't see it detailed in the article.
As usual, we need laws preventing gross (in every sense) invasions of privacy. Building new apps that aren't evil still allows the evil ones to exist. Targeted advertising as a whole should be eradicated.
> arguing that apps must provide clear consent options rather than all-or-nothing data collection
What's wrong with "nothing"? Other than the companies not being able to squeeze a few more dollars out of selling user data, of course
Combine this with the Meta Pixel illegal localhost tracking that bypasses privacy measures [1] [2] and the privacy leaking could be off the scale.
I think this goes for all things - medical data such as heart rate, blood sugar, steps, weight, VO2 max, etc, could all be seriously misused.
Personally I try to use apps that are not cloud-based, or make my own, but this isn't an option for everybody.
[1] https://www.zeropartydata.es/p/localhost-tracking-explained-...
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44235467
In the current climate, no one should use a menstrual tracking app of any kind, even those with on-device-only data. Asking normal people to figure out the risk profile of that data, and to evaluate the trustworthiness of a given app, is just too much.
Use a paper calendar.
The article doesn't explain how their safety is at risk.
One of reasons I am underwhelmed by all the smart sport watches. When eventually their DBs get hacked or they sell data willingly, I dont want my employer to see that I was running in the forest during lunch time, or my health insurance to see any circulatory anomaly if I had any.
Fuck that, I will start ignoring that few years before retirement, not a second earlier. Its a shame, and I know people like me wont bend the direction we firmly head towards