Fitbit Says Data of Its 28 Million Users Will Not Be Sold Or Used For Google Ads (theguardian.com) 56
After acquiring Fitbit for $2.1 billion last week, many users were left wondering if Google would have access to their health information, such as the number of steps they take each day, their breathing patterns, sleep quality or menstrual cycles. Fitbit has since addressed those concerns in a blog post, claiming user data would not be sold or used for Google advertising. "Consumer trust is paramount to Fitbit. Strong privacy and security guidelines have been part of Fitbit's DNA since day one, and this will not change," the company said in a statement. From a report: Google already keeps a trove of information on people, including location data, search history and YouTube viewing history. The company also creates advertisement profiles of users based on information such as location, gender, age, hobbies, career, interests, relationship status, possible weight (need to lose 10lb in one day?) and income. Even if Google claims it won't use Fitbit health data for advertising, the acquisition is probably bad for user privacy, said Paul Bischoff, a privacy advocate with Comparitech. Just because the companies say user data will not be used for advertising now does not mean that won't change, he said.
"Fitbit says health and wellness data will not be used for advertising, but that leaves plenty of other information for Google to gather, including users' locations, device info, friends' lists, messages, profile photos, participation in employee wellness programs, and usage logs," he said. The report notes that users can delete their accounts via the Fitbit website. The company said it would then permanently delete data associated with the account after a seven-day grace period.
"Fitbit says health and wellness data will not be used for advertising, but that leaves plenty of other information for Google to gather, including users' locations, device info, friends' lists, messages, profile photos, participation in employee wellness programs, and usage logs," he said. The report notes that users can delete their accounts via the Fitbit website. The company said it would then permanently delete data associated with the account after a seven-day grace period.
Things you never think about... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Things you never think about... (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm pretty sure that fitbit on your wrists _knows_ every time you have sex, ...
Then combine it with info from other apps - like your partner's phone's location - and it knows who you're having sex WITH.
That ought to be monitizable.
(Might have trouble figuring out right vs. left hand though. But fitbit vs. non-fitbit hand would be easy.)
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People jerk off while wearing their smartwatches? What kind of bizarre fetish is this?
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Sure for now (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sure for now (Score:4, Insightful)
... or, Google already has the information
Or the Fitbit spokesdroid is lying.
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... or, Google already has the information
Or the Fitbit spokesdroid is lying.
I see a lot of assumptions/claims of this form on /., and they betray a deep ignorance of the consequences of deliberate deception of the public -- and, more to the point, the stockholders. For officials of publicly-traded companies to make false statements that could affect the share price is a serious offense, and one that the SEC pursues aggressively. And it's extremely difficult to keep such deceptions secret; too many people are involved and odds are too high that one of them will spill the beans.
T
Re:Sure for now (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now, fitbit is correct - the data will not be used for advertising. But once Fitbit falls under the Alphabet umbrella, the Alphabet privacy policy applies, which means basically all data is to be used by all subsidiaries. So advertising, YouTube suggestions, and many other things will have access to your data.
Right now they're still separate companies and the best you can do is to unlink your Google account from your Fitbit account and make them independent, otherwise it's much too easy to get the data linked up together. Of course, you don't know if they haven't maintained the tokens used to link in the future, but there you go.
And finally, check out the wording. Google Advertising - but companies like DoubleClick, AdMob and such are not "Google Ads" - and they're part of Alphabet, not Google. Might be a journalistic thing, but might also be a very carefully worded statement - since Google Ads is something completely different from Alphabet's advertising networks like DoubleClick, AdMob and others. (Google Ads were the little neat text ads they inserted on search results. DoubleClick and such were those popups/popunders/flashy and other banner ads everyone hates and AdMob are pretty much every app advertising).
You want an assurance? Ask why that data isn't being stored into Google Health - the health records part that holds all this health data and squirrels it away from the rest of Alphabet because it's so sensitive and likely HIPPA protected.
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Fortunately this is opt-in in the EU and we can reject it without loss of service. Under GDPR they can't tie the provision of service to necessary use of your personal data.
The fine for breaking that rule is max 4% of global turnover, which for Alphabet would be a few billion Euros.
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companies like DoubleClick, AdMob and such are not "Google Ads" - and they're part of Alphabet, not Google
This is incorrect. They're part of Google.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DoubleClick
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdMob
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oh, come on. The policy is quite simple:
All of your data are belong to us! :(
hawk
Fitbit won't have a say in the matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fitbit won't have a say in the matter (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course it could be worse. It could be Facebook.
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How the hell is Google better than Facebook? Both are advertising companies promoting ads related to your online activities, on their platforms and off their platforms, by tracking you wherever you are. They both send ads and skew search results to promote their political agendas, as well as promoting products of the highest-bidding advertisers.
I don't see how one is better than the other.
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To be fair there's 1 reason.
Fitbit can say what they like, they don't own the company anymore.
If I see my car to you, I can put out a statement saying "The milk duds in the glove box will not be eaten" all I like, you might even promise not to eat them, but if you eat them on the way home from buying the car I have no say, comeback or ability to prevent you at all.
Deaf ears (Score:1)
Fitbit's devices are missing really basic features that Apple and Garmin have had for a good long while. They still don't offer fall detection for instance. This google business was impetus enough for me to switch to Garmin, but I've been planning to go elsewhere for a while now anyway.
Social media != news (Score:3)
FTA: "Still, dozens of Fitbit wearers complained on social media over the weekend"
Well stop the feckn presses! Dozens, DOZENS, of Fitbit's 28 million users have taken to social media to complain about their privacy being invaded. Hold on, I have to go wash the irony off me.
All this time..... (Score:1)
Still leaves other business fields (Score:3)
"Dear female customer,
we sold your workout noises as dub material for ukrainian tennis matches.
Thanks for not reading the fineprint!
Sincerely"
Hack this! (Score:2)
The ad company won't ad? (Score:2)
Get sold for statistical use after lots of efforts to anonymize?
Fitbit's CURRENT MANAGEMENT says .. (Score:2)
After acquiring Fitbit for $2.1 billion last week, many users were left wondering if Google [a company with revenue primarily from monitizing their information about users of their products] would have access to their health information ...
Fitbit['s current management] has since addressed those concerns ...
F.T.F.Y.
While Fitbit's current management may really main that, what power will they have to make it real after Google has integrated Fitbit into its operation? Especially if the reorganization moves the
Re:Fitbit's CURRENT MANAGEMENT says .. (Score:5, Insightful)
I was involved in discussions around acquiring data from Tomtom for a traffic management and safety project, and I was surprised to learn that the fitbit data was amongst that product. It was anonymised and aggregated so that one trace's movements weren't linked to each other, so useless for advertising, but still adding a huge amount of value for planning infrastructure.
Google will absolutely be selling this data. The may well aggregate it into flows at times of day or week or year, but that data is already available for purchase, or at least analysis based on that data is available for analysis. Taking this off tomtom, who are actually the market leader in traffic flow information, will not be lost on google.
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Remember, when it comes to IP, the word "sell" can be used very creatively in the EULA. It's very easy to exchange information for profit and not have to "sell" it.
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Google's entire business model is selling access to their vast data.
This is incorrect, in two ways.
First, advertising is not Google's entire business model. It's around 85% of Google's business model and falling, as enterprise services (GSuite), cloud services, and hardware sales are growing faster than the ad business.
Second, and more importantly, Google's advertising business doesn't "sell access" to data, at least not under the normal meaning of the phrase, which would imply that other companies give Google money in exchange for the ability to view/copy the data and
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I'd guess there are far more phones with Google Maps and/or Waze than there are Tomtom devices.
It's a similar order of magnitude, but TomTom has more.
At least they did until google bought fitbit.
Will not be used DIRECTLY... (Score:1)
But used for everytihing else (Score:2)
And They Should be Trusted Because? (Score:2)
Lies (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's how it goes:
- Now: 'user data will never be sold or used for ad targeting'
- One year: 'You will now need to log into a Google account instead of your Fitbit account'
- 18 months: 'Our privacy terms have changed'
( And then 2-3 years, Google quietly shutters the entire brand )
That didn't take long... (Score:3)
...for them to start lying.
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...for them to start lying.
https://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=15164146&cid=59390602
Easy out clause (Score:2)
When Google is the owner, the users are not Fitbitâ(TM)s users but Googleâ(TM)s.
Next year Fitbit becomes Google Wrist (Score:2)
and all you user data is up for grabs.
Google may not do the advertising ... (Score:2)
read the announcement as a contract (Score:2)
Assume that every. single. word. is a carefully-placed weapon that hurts you and helps Google. Assume that the absolute worst possible interpretation of every word is the BEST case.
Here's what will actually happen (Score:1)
The "reality":
Where have I heard that one before? (Score:1)
We won't share your data (Score:2)
I won't ruin your lawn mower
I won't cum in your mouth
Finally something good to replace "The cheque is in the mail" with in the The World's Three Biggest Lies.
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"Your call is very important to us"
"Listen carefully because our menu options have recently changed"
"We're SORRY but *"
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"Your call is important to us..."
...please wait while we ignore it.
Why share the fitness data in the first place? (Score:1)
I'm just curious. Why share the fitness data in the first place? Surely such a dumb smart device could or should be completely usable even when not networked. Is there really any function that requires an Internet connection? I'm using a no-name Chinese gadget that costs less than an Arduino or USB flash disk, and it works fine without the app except if I need to sync the time. I have the app firewalled from the Internet. (Funny thing is that I have an Android firewall to protect myself from the app and n
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I totally agree with you but the biggest excuse Fitbit/Google use is that they can keep manufacturing costs down by limiting internal storage and putting all the data into a remote store, and then they sell you the shiny analytics and fancy graphs on the data you supply to them by the hour. People want state of the art devices with all the bells and whistles, well there's a price to pay and that price is their privacy, sadly people just don't see it.
I believe them! (Score:1)
And I shoud know as I'm a big purple wasp from Mars with a blue ass!
Google's whole purpose in life is to use and abuse personal information to make money. I'm not saying they'll use it directly but there are plenty of ways they can search and use the info anonymously without getting into any serious trouble. For them to say they won't use it at all is just absolute horse crap!
Translation: (Score:1)
Data of its 28 million users will definitely be sold and used for Google ads.
Sure (Score:1)
And WhatsApp will never be used for advertising.
Deleted (Score:1)
Just deleted my account. Hope what they said about personal data deletion is true!