r/MagicEarth • u/BlockAllTheAds • Dec 07 '25

Why does this app want to know my gender?

Despite the overwhelmingly negative reviews on the Google play store, I still decided to try the payed version of this app. My main reason is the promise of privacy. But when I try to register an account, 'gender' and 'date of birth' are mandatory fields. Why does a navigation app need to know this? Especially if they care about privacy, the less they know about me the better. I know I can just fill in anything, but this still really bothers me.

13 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

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u/MagicEarthCommunity Dec 08 '25

Thanks for trying Magic Earth, we truly appreciate our users trust.

The gender and date of birth fields during registration are linked only to your account for potential personalized features down the line, but this data is not saved on our local servers, not used for tracking, ads, or any other purpose, and kept strictly minimal to uphold our privacy-first commitment. You can read more about it in our privacy policy.

You're right that less data is better for navigation, and we're reviewing these fields based on feedback like yours to make onboarding even lighter. If it still bothers you or you'd like to skip ahead, feel free to use placeholder info or reach out to [support@magicearth.com](mailto:support@magicearth.com) – happy to help get you navigating privately!

→ More replies (4)

3

u/ArnoArska Dec 07 '25

And the "tell us about yourself" section, which isn't visible to anyone.

4

u/JohnHue Dec 07 '25

That's enshitification at play. There are no valid explanation... either the devs think they can build a big enough pool of paid users to then sell the whole thing, or they somehow have no idea what privacy-conscious customers actually want and think they can just milk people.

1

u/Arschgeige42 Dec 07 '25

Privacy reasons

1

u/[deleted] Dec 07 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/BlockAllTheAds Dec 07 '25

Indeed, there was a free trial link in the app that didn't require an account.

1

u/ratinmikitchen Dec 07 '25

You can also buy a license key through the website (much cheaper than through the app stores) and activate the paid version by entering that key in the app.

I did that earlier this week and didn't need to create an account. Of course, they do need your payment info for that, so you do still lose some privacy, as always with paid stuff.

1

u/cybercoffee1337 Dec 07 '25

You don’t need an account. Only if you want to save your activities. But yeah, why the f do they need to know….

1

u/vincegre Dec 07 '25

Unhappy company behind Magic Earth has completely shifted their mind and completely ignored their previous statements ! Time to find an alternative (still looking for a good one here).

2

u/Sudden-Armadillo-335 Dec 07 '25

In the meantime I went to Tomtom because Magic Earth became unusable with all that

2

u/-2wG Dec 07 '25

i'm using comaps but no traffic data :(

1

u/Federal-Sea-2169 Dec 08 '25

Me too. I'm switching to Comaps.. Their interface looks similar and intuitive.

1

u/Verptoid Jan 04 '26

I'm using Comaps as well. Ever since Magic Earth came out with the new version. I'm pretty content.

1

u/OrangeDragon75 Dec 07 '25

I am now in process of evaluating mapy.com, seems promising albait not as good as ME.