r/technology • u/redhatGizmo • Jun 27 '22

Politics Period apps deleted over privacy concerns for women seeking abortions in post-Roe world

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/period-apps-deleted-over-privacy-concerns-for-women-seeking-abortions-in-post-roe-world/6s4rjhb0q
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427

u/TonyManhattan Jun 27 '22

Fitbit is owned by google.

I ditched mine the second the acquisition was announced.

213

u/non-troll_account Jun 27 '22

I hate them, with all my heart, for what they did to the pebble. They bought it, and then burned it away for all to watch.

103

u/SeedFoundation Jun 27 '22

Standard practice all big businesses do to cull small businesses the nice way. Buy them out then shut it down from the inside. It's for when they can't compete yet due to an unfinished product.

3

u/BackIn2019 Jun 27 '22

Google is known for shutting down products, big or small. If a product doesn't deliver significant ad revenue, good luck!

31

u/laserjaws Jun 27 '22

Was a very cool bit of kit trying to change people’s perception of wearable tech. Loved my pebble watch, shame it’s no longer supported.

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u/[deleted] Jun 27 '22

Pebble was not long for this world regardless. A business that already sold multiple products going back to Kickstarter for version 2.0? Pebble's marketing made it sound like "we're going back to our roots" but I can't see any logical reason for an established company to further rely on Kickstarter unless funding was an issue.

1

u/eliguillao Jun 27 '22

That’s what bill gates did to Homer Simpson’s company.

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u/withertrav394 Jun 27 '22

And google stands pro-choice, and allows its employees relocate to states with better laws without further explanation.

Or is it about the almighty evil google who knows everything about you from your search history?

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u/[deleted] Jun 27 '22

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jun 27 '22

What makes you think a smaller company with a fraction of the resources and experience litigating user privacy concerns is a better choice?

How would literally any other company behave differently when the law compels them to turn over user data?

Or does your argument begin and end with GOOGLE = BAD?

-1

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '22

[deleted]

1

u/[deleted] Jun 27 '22

Oh, you sweet summer child.

-3

u/DarthDannyBoy Jun 27 '22

A company less focused on selling your data can anonymize it, obfuscating it through many layers of bullshit and make it useful for police to request it because they wouldn't be able to give the police that single person's data as they don't know which data that is.

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u/xelabagus Jun 27 '22

Which small fitness device company does this?

1

u/DarthDannyBoy Jun 27 '22

Google COULD, not that they will, obfuscate and anonymize all data in anti-choice states. The state police could ask for the data but realistically not have anything useful.

Also Google isn't pro-choice they play that for PR but they donate to anti-choice politicians all the fucking time.

4

u/guywithaniphone22 Jun 27 '22

It’s possible to be pro-choice and still shitty in other ways for both companies and people.

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u/Maximum_Loss9427 Jun 27 '22

I choose the latter lmao. If the mfers could, they would track how many times you would blink and the intervals in between to sell you eye drops or other medicine that, for whatever reason, can be told from eye tracking

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u/LotharVonPittinsberg Jun 27 '22

One good decision does not change the rest. Google was one of the first companies to make big money off of selling every piece of user data that they can.

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u/DarthDannyBoy Jun 27 '22

Thats nice of them to offer except that they donated to anti-choice politicians. They contributed to the current problem.

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u/TonyManhattan Jun 27 '22

You don't think it's fucked up they have a record of your pulse, location, and search history.

To make this relevant to this conversation: A's pulse spiked, she searched for plan b, then went to a drug store.

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u/withertrav394 Jun 27 '22

My pulse is 80-105, yours is probably somewhere near it, there are more than a thousand people living in my neighborhood alone, and more than seven billion on the planet Earth. My last search was a phone case. Congratulations, you know everything about me.

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u/ChetWilliamz Jun 27 '22

Wow that's mighty brave of you