Spotify wrapped started this trend seems other apps are following through. Seeing a summary of things you did with there app. Kind of gives you a hint how much other things are being tracked.
I doubt it.
The kind of data used for “wrapped” type summaries are usually the kind of data that users want to be tracked because it powers features they want.
Like Spotify wrapped is based of Spotify play history, and being able to see your recently played songs is a feature people want.
Duolingo wrapped is based on lesson progress, and it has to track your progress else it doesn’t know what lesson you’re doing.
idk what other apps do this, it’s pretty rare for me, but afaict it’s all just normal stuff.
Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of privacy problems that apps try to fuck with, but I don’t think that yearly wrapped is likely to be one of them.
Yeah I don’t mind apps keeping track of how I’ve been using them. But if duolingo tells me where my friend got married and congratulates me on keeping my streak through that then we’re gonna have some concerns
Lucy does keep saying that she is always listening rather ominously
That actually requires very little data compared to the amount of data being collected. They collect absolutely everything all the time.
What do you mean by that?
It’s not my job to educate you
perfect 👌
Hahahaha
My to do list app had a wrapped and I was deeply displeased to see it.
Do tell
“You bought $300 worth of candles every month!”
Don’t remind me 😔
What’s the candle for?
That’s for him, his app, their data brokers, and their 198 ad partners to know!
Or you too if you buy the data 😇💸
Use Fossify notes
data retention
It’s the opposite - most regulatory frameworks require that you only retain data if you have a “legitimate purpose” for holding on to it; providing app features absolutely is a legitimate purpose, so by having a “wrapped” you can justify holding on to everything a user does - after all, you need it to provide features.
Nope. Especially under GDPR. To use an example of Spotify - having a “wrapped” is not part of the core offering and is not necessary for the service to work. Meaning they need your permission to store that data (or other legal framework).
I love hearing about how protective the GDPR is and wish it was a worldwide initiative with the teeth to truly protect humanity from themselves.
Music recommendations are part of the core offering though and keeping play history is pretty vital for that. There might be local ways to do it but probably not as good
That’s interesting never thought of that.
The whole ‘wrapped’ summaries thing dovetails perfectly into social media narcissism. It’s quite a spectacle to witness.
Edit: the phrase I was looking for came to me:
Sharing ‘wrapped’ anything is solid gold self-absorbed dipshittery.
I enjoy it for retro achievements because it said I spent 60 hours playing Dragon.Quest 8 for the PS2. But that’s probably because it’s all free.
And oddly enough it was the only wrapped I got as I don’t do subscription based stuff.
I use the journalling app Daylio, which has a wrapped feature. It’s all done locally, on device. Not every implementation of this feature is spying on you.
This app is pretty cool. Just saying this because it let me export my data when I wanted to stop using it. Which is not a common feature in proprietary software so hats off to the devs.
not a common feature in proprietary software
Just so you know, the GDPR mandates that you can at any time get a full export of all your personal data from anyone who’s processing it in a common, machine readable format. It is laudable though to have that integrated as a feature in the software, rather than jumping through hoops contacting support etc.
Just to add on, it’s not just they let you export data in a cool PDF, it also lets you export the data as a CSV so it can be parsed by other things.
Antenna-Pod does it this way as well.
If it just uses data that is on your device right now, that is okay. But if it keeps track on things, even on your device, it can lead to security vulnerabilities, depending how it is stored how long it is kept.
And most importantly, enshittification and automatic updates could easily change that policy to retroactively hoover up all that precious data. This stuff is insanely valuable too.
Not saying daylio is doing it or going to. Just that keeping data comes with a risk. ideally, there should be clear documentation what is being kept, where and for how long.
You’re right, I should just refuse to trust any developers and go back to the paper journal I never used.
Yes to part one. You should not trust devs that do opt out data collection of any kind. If you‘re interested in a funny way to learn about this stuff, check out „security nightmares“ from the recent 38c3 congress.
I suggest you keep track of your thoughts and moods with open source apps.
Daylio does not do “opt-out data collection”. IT doesn’t even have “opt-in”.
Yes, and while that’s a fine ideal, it does not always produce well-made or polished applications. For myself, Daylio is a medical/mental health app that assisted with my diagnosis of Bipolar disorder. Unfortunately FOSS apps related to medical stuff are not the greatest or most widely developed.
If they collect any data besides the stuff thats already pleasant in your files (day of creation, user who created it, etc), that is data collection and if you didnt activate it, its opt out. I didnt check daylio, I‘m talking about it in general.
And yes, of course for profit companies will make more polished products. This doesnt even hinge on foss. Nextcloud is pretty polished and foss for example. That said, medical stuff is very niche and less common in foss (although present).
…medical stuff is very niche…
Is it though? I personally feel like it’s much more down to the attitudes of people that create and contribute to foss applications. I do understand that for profit companies have more resources, but I genuinely think that foss folks don’t do enough to support accessibility, and don’t often focus on medical stuff. There are exceptions to that though, drip is an awesome app for example.
Thanks for mentioning this.
Of course it would be a lot better if there were more foss health apps.
But as an open source dev, donor and contributor, it is absolutely impossible to make decent software on a nearly global scale with what usually amounts to one person in their free time without a single cent of income.
I know there are theoretical workarounds like donations but even I (who uses mostly open source) cant donate to every app/library I use. You need to make few big donations instead of many small ones. Otherwise you donate to the banking system and thats it. For example I partly finance this platform we are talking on in larger chunks instead of weekly/monthly as not to pay too much fees.
The issue is systemic. We desperately need something like open source tax which is to be paid by those who profit the most off it (large companies) and especially who dont pay any other taxes (mostly).
And yes, compared to a chat app, a health app is niche. But you are right, that should be no problem.
Please write to your political representative and speak out about us needing significantly more funding for open source. Many issues have been solved that way.
Full time open source work must pay the rent and food, period. Sorry for the rant.
Isn’t that just basic data they already kept track of?
A boring dystopia
Not really sure what you mean basic but if tracking someone’s clicks on certain button, or features and can be traced back to you. It’s actually kind off putting so much for making your information anonymise which most companies claim.
But “wrapped” type things aren’t using button press telemetry. They’re using data that the user wants access to anyways, like their Spotify play history, or Duolingo lesson progress.
It doesn’t even make sense to anonymize that data because people want to see their play history, not what was popular last week.
But for Spotify they are tracking how many times you played different songs. Not trying to defend them, but for a music service I’m pretty sure they need to track that kind of information regardless. Might as well tally it up and show your own data to you
They only need aggregate data for that, they don’t need them to be assigned to a specific user account.
Music players have been keeping play counts since before the invention of the iPod. It’s a datapoint that users have come to expect. I actually wish services like Spotify or Apple Music did a better job of displaying this data throughout the year rather than just in end of year infographics.
Like I dunno, Google is literally collating your location data, I hardly think music plays is top secret info.
I actually wish services like Spotify or Apple Music did a better job of displaying this data throughout the year rather than just in end of year infographics.
Preach
Spotify > Search > Made For You > “On Repeat” / “Repeat Rewind” = not sufficient
Chad Google Play Music > sort by plays = perfect
I thought Google Play Music didn’t exist anymore?
Sure doesn’t yeah, guess I was just reliving a good feature memory 😉
the difference is that mp3 players didn’t upload all that information to an American datacenter. Also tracking times of day, building profiles on listeners, etc.
They need that assigned to specific use accounts so that people can look at their play history. A thing that people often want to do with their music players.
If they did that it would be far too easy for people to boost listens and ratings with bots
The only software that could do that for me was Steam; saying when I played which games how long, and if it appeared to be on a Steam Deck or not. It did not nearly track all the Deck data, it seems if the Deck has no Internet connection for long enough it kind of just discards data it held and it never gets synced to Steam. For my desktop it was accurate, but only the game time stats it already let me know it tracks.
Since nothing else could “wrap” my annual data I think I’m going fine.
I know Steam itself says it doesn’t track your playtime while you’re playing offline. Not sure about the Steam Deck, though.
It’s also a fun way to see how good their data is
For a few of the apps, the data was very limited and/or very wrong. That made me happy
Which apps do that? None of mind have suggested anything.
I’m aware of spotify, youtube, and to a lesser extent strava and duolingo.
I don’t use either one of them, but people have posted screenshots from all those on social media.
Yeah, I try not to install apps from major companies and use 3rd party when possible. I always just assume that those are tracking you even if they say they aren’t
Yep, if there’s a third party app available I’ll take those instead, or for the likes of spotify I just download my music for offline playback. Not a fan of streaming in general, I’m a big proponent of file ownership. A bit different for youtube videos that I treat as disposable (consume it once and likely never again), but for music and movies, I need to hold on to the files. Even if I got legitimate access through Netflix or Prime, if it’s good, I’ll download a copy for archiving purposes.
For other apps I’ll try to get a FOSS alternative or if that fails (or is butt ugly) I’ll go with a small dev on google play instead.
I just use Grayjay for youtube.
Newpipe for me. On desktop I use the plain old website, but with adblock, sponsorblock and all other privacy enabling plugins, and of course on Firefox.
I actually have both installed, but I like how I can have different services with Grayjay.
The only app I have that does such a thing does it because it’s deliberately gamified to help you build a good habit and tracking/summarizing your achievements for that year. IMO any other kind of app doing that is a gigantic red flag and you ought to delete it and find a replacement in the F-Droid repository (which consists entirely of Free Software that is much less likely to contain those sorts of dark patterns and other antifeatures) instead.
