WebMD Pregnancy

Ostrzeżenie: *Prywatność dla tego produktu do nabycia osobno

WebMD Pregnancy

WebMD
Wi-Fi

Data recenzji: 9 sierpnia 2022

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Według Mozilli:

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Według użytkowników: Bardzo przerażające

WebMD, everyone's favorite website to go to check if that headache they're having is actually cancer, also makes apps for your phone. There's the general WebMD app, which sounds like it could turn anyone into a hypochondriac, there's the WebMD Allergy app, and then there's WebMD's pregnancy app (they make a baby app too). WebMD Pregnancy is only available for iOS users (sorry Android folks) and is free to download and use. The app offers what many other pregnancy apps do — week-by-week pregnancy monitoring, baby development tracking, a symptom tracker, weight and blood pressure tracking, kick counter, belly photo album, contraction timer, doctor appointment calendar, and, of course, lots of WebMD articles to help you understand pregnancy. What does the WebMD app look like from a privacy perspective? Well, not to scare you (ha! who hasn't gone to WebMD and not gotten scared?), but it has us pretty worried.

Co się może stać, jeśli coś pójdzie nie tak?

You know the number one rule of the internet, "If something is free, then you're the product"? Yeah, we'd say that very much applies here with WebMD's pregnancy tracking app. The app is free, as is all that free health advice you can get on their website. Which is great. What is not great is that means you're being tracked and targeted based on your health questions and app usage. WebMD accepts advertising from third parties on it's own WebMD Network. That typically comes with lots of tracking of you around WebMD properties, including the WebMD pregnancy app. It also seems WebMD shares, and possibly sells, information on their users to third parties for advertising purposes. Again, WebMD's product is free, so the personal and usage data they collect on you is the business asset they get in return to monetize for lots of advertising. Is this the way the internet pretty much works these days? Unfortunately, yes. Is it rather scary when you're sharing personal information about your pregnancy and other health concerns and symptoms? Absolutely!

And WebMD does say the can collect a good deal of personal information on users. Things like name, address, telephone number, gender, email address and date of birth, precise location, health-related information such as symptoms, app and website usage data, unique device identifier, and more. They go on to say they can collect even more data about your from external, third party sources to combine with the data they already have on you to be able to target you even better with ads both on and off WebMD services. They say the data they collect this way includes "age, gender, demographic, geographic, personal interests, product purchase activity or other information." So, WebMD and their pregnancy app are likely collecting a whole bunch of data on you from lots of places. The more they know about you, the better.

WebMD says they can share your information with a pretty large group of third parties including, "subsidiaries, affiliates and companies acquired by or merged with us and our affiliates," "third party companies and contractors that help us provide the Service," and third party advertising service providers.

And how do they say they can us this data? Well, for lots and lots of targeted, interested-based advertising, of course. Also for things like personalization, to market good and services, and do research and to offer "lead generation services" (basically, helping business find new customers based on demographics they collect). Reminder, you are the product.

How does WebMD say they will handle law enforcement requests? They say in their privacy policy, "To cooperate with government authorities and law enforcement officials and private parties to enforce and comply with law, we may release personal information to third parties: (1) to comply with legal requirements such as a law, regulation, search warrant, subpoena or court order; (2) when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or respond to a government request; or (3) in special cases, such as in response to a physical threat to you or others..." Which isn't as clear a statement as we'd like to see here at Mozilla. We'd like to see WebMD (and all products we review) clearly state they won't disclose user data voluntarily, and that they won't give up user data to law enforcement unless required to under subpoena, and even then, we like to see them commit to only giving up the bare minimum necessary.

What's the worst that could happen if you chose to use the WebMD Pregnancy app? Well, you could get inundated with ads for everything remotely related to pregnancy and becoming a parent, spend way too much money on things you don't need, and then be broke when the baby comes. Shoot, that might not be the worst thing that could happen, but it sure does sound crappy. Here's some good advice from WebMD we actually recommend you consider, "If you do not want your personal information used by WebMD as provided in this Privacy Policy, you should not use the WebMD Sites, Apps and Services."

Wskazówki, jak się chronić

  • When you no longer use the app, go to "Delete account" in the app menu
  • Turn off precise location sharing!
  • Chose a strong password! You may use a password control tool like 1Password, KeePass etc.
  • Use your device privacy controls to limit access to your personal information via app (do not give access to your camera, microphone, images and videos)
  • Keep your app regularly updated
  • Limit ad tracking via your device (eg on iPhone go to Privacy -> Advertising -> Limit ad tracking) and biggest ad networks (for Google, go to Google account and turn off ad personalization)
  • mobile

Czy może mnie podsłuchiwać? informacje

Aparat

Urządzenie: Nie dotyczy

Aplikacja: Nie

Mikrofon

Urządzenie: Nie dotyczy

Aplikacja: Nie

Śledzi położenie

Urządzenie: Nie dotyczy

Aplikacja: Tak

Czego można użyć do rejestracji?

Jakie dane zbiera ta firma?

Jak ta firma wykorzystuje te dane?

We ding this product for acquiring data from third parties even if a user chose to not give any personal information. For using precise location for advertisement. For sharing personal data for advertisement. For combining data "Personal information “sold” to third parties:"

"In the preceding twelve (12) months, we have made available your personal information included in category A to third parties for advertising services."

"WebMD may combine your personal information and other information collected about your use of the Services, and also supplement with information from external sources for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. "

"Even if you do not register with or provide any personal information to WebMD, we collect information about your use of the WebMD Sites and Apps and the Services. We may also acquire information about our users from external sources."

"When enabled by you, we collect precise location information provided by your mobile device, such as latitude and longitude. We do so to provide you more relevant content including advertising based on your location. You may disable the collection and use of your location data through your device settings. To change location settings on your device, please refer to your device’s official knowledge base."

"We may share information that we have about you, such as a cookie ID or IP address, with third party advertising service providers who may use this information, on our behalf, to help WebMD deliver advertising on the WebMD Sites as well as on third party websites..."

How the company says they may share data with law enforcement:

"To cooperate with government authorities and law enforcement officials and private parties to enforce and comply with law, WebMD may release personal information to third parties: (1) to comply with legal requirements such as a law, regulation, search warrant, subpoena or court order; (2) when they believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or respond to a government request; or (3) in special cases, such as in response to a physical threat to you or others, to protect property or defend or assert legal rights."

Jak możesz kontrolować swoje dane?

We ding this product as it is unclear if all users can delete their data.

"At any time you can remove your personal information or instruct us to remove it."

"Upon your request, we will delete your registration information from our active databases and where feasible from our back-up media. You should be aware that it is not technologically possible to remove each and every record of the information you have provided to the WebMD Sites from our servers."

WebMD will retain your personal information as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you Services.

"If you do not want your personal information used by WebMD as provided in this Privacy Policy, you should not use the WebMD Sites, Apps and Services. You can correct, update or review personal information you have previously submitted by going back to the specific Service, logging-in and making the desired change. You can also request access, correction, or deletion of personal information by contacting us using the contact information listed below or through the Contact Us link provided at the bottom of every page of the WebMD Sites." Note, we emailed WebMD multiple times at the email address listed in their privacy policy and received now answers to our privacy questions. We're unsure how much users can trust the contact they have provided for data deletion.

Jaka jest znana historia tej firmy w zakresie ochrony danych użytkowników?

Średnia

WebMD faced a class action lawsuit in 2020 that claimed "the WebMD website violates California privacy law by recording their visitors."

In 2019, the Financial Times reported that health websites, including WebMD, were sharing sensitive data with advertisers

Informacje o prywatności dziecka

The WebMD Sites are not designed or intended to attract children under the age of 13. The WebMD Sites do not collect personal information from any person we actually know is under the age of 13.

WebMD do not sell the personal information of consumers that they know are minors under 16 years of age without affirmative authorization as required under the CCPA.

Czy ten produkt może być używany bez połączenia z siecią?

Tak

Przyjazne dla użytkownika informacje o prywatności?

Tak

Odnośniki do informacji o prywatności

Czy ten produkt spełnia nasze minimalne standardy bezpieczeństwa? informacje

Nieznane

Szyfrowanie

Tak

Silne hasło

Tak

Aktualizacje zabezpieczeń

Tak

Zajmuje się problemami z bezpieczeństwem

Nie można ustalić

Zasady ochrony prywatności

Tak

Czy produkt wykorzystuje sztuczną inteligencję? informacje

Nie można ustalić

Czy tej sztucznej inteligencji nie można ufać?

Nie można ustalić

Jakie decyzje sztuczna inteligencja podejmuje o Tobie lub za Ciebie?

Czy firma jest przejrzysta w kwestii działania sztucznej inteligencji?

Nie można ustalić

Czy użytkownik ma kontrolę nad funkcjami sztucznej inteligencji?

Nie można ustalić

*Prywatność do nabycia osobno

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