Warning: *privacy not included with this product
Nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide. That's what you get with these connected treadmills from NordicTrack. Climb on the road to nowhere, hop in one of the live, interactive training sessions you stream on the HD touchscreen right in front of you, and take off. The personal trainers can control your treadmill's incline, decline, and speed in real time so you have no choice but to sprint up that hill! Google Maps technology lets you run anywhere in the world. And you get tons of personalized stats to tell you how much harder you need to run to beat your buddy. Just the motivation you need to lose those extra few pounds.
What could happen if something goes wrong?
NordicTrack’s privacy policy is an exercise in awful. They say they can sell your data, they can call or text your phone number even if you’re on a do-not-call list, they may get data from data brokers and use it to know more about you to target you with lots of ads. It's so awful, in fact, the we made the decision to give NordicTrack our *Privacy Not Included warning label on it alone.
NordicTrack says they might sell your data. Not good. They also seem to collect and share a good amount of data on their users, including buying data from data brokers and gathering it from public sources. Also not good. They say they will use all the data they can collect on you to target you with advertising and marketing and make suggestions to you about goods or services that may be of interest to you. Eh, not good but also, kinda the way the world works these days. One final kick in the pants from NordicTrack’s privacy policy. They say, “By creating an account with us, you agree that we may contact you for marketing and transactional purposes by phone, e-mail, mail, or text message, even if your number is on a do-not-call list or is a wireless number.” Yikes!!!!
So, if you buy a NordicTrack exercise machine and sign up for their iFit app for workouts, expect your data to be collected, used to target you with all kinds of ads, your phone number is now fair game for marketing texts or phone calls from them, and your data is possibly being sold to third parties. You’re gonna need a good workout to help get rid of the stress of all that. Maybe go outside and take a run or bike offline though, that seems safer. Good news though, residents of California in the US can opt out of some of this data gathering and selling. Just California residents though, thanks to their privacy law called CCPA, no one else. Yay for strong privacy laws!
Tips to protect yourself
- Be very careful what third party companies you consent to share you health data with. If you do decided to share your health data with another company, read their privacy policy to see how they protect, secure, and share or sell your data.
- Once you do not use a device any more, make sure to request deletion of all your data
Can it snoop on me?
Camera
Device: No
App: No
Microphone
Device: No
App: No
Tracks location
Device: No
App: Yes
What can be used to sign up?
Yes
Phone
No
Third-party account
Yes
What data does the company collect?
Personal
Name, date of birth, gender, email, phone number
Body related
Height, weight
Social
How does the company use this data?
How can you control your data?
What is the company’s known track record of protecting users’ data?
No known incidents in the last 3 years.
Can this product be used offline?
User-friendly privacy information?
Links to privacy information
Does this product meet our Minimum Security Standards?
Encryption
Strong password
Security updates
Manages vulnerabilities
Privacy policy
Does the product use AI?
Is this AI untrustworthy?
What kind of decisions does the AI make about you or for you?
NordicTrack provides recommendations on your workout.
Is the company transparent about how the AI works?
Does the user have control over the AI features?
Comments
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