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GasBuddy Has a New Privacy Policy (Spoiler: Not As Customer Friendly)
An anonymous reader writes: GasBuddy has been a popular iOS and Android app for the last 5 years used to find the cheapest place to get gas. According to the Google Play store, there are over 10 million installs (in additions to the installs from Apple and Amazon's appstores). Now that they have a large enough number of users, GasBuddy has updated their privacy policy to allow them to collect more information. Some highlights of the privacy policy changes include: only 10 days for new terms to take effect (previously users were given 30 days to review the changes); collection of "signal strength related to Wifi or Bluetooth functionality, temperature, battery level, and similar technical data"; and [a warning that the company] will not honor a web browser's "do not track" setting.
Is it even worthwhile to use an app like that to save a few cents on gas?
If I have to spend even 5 minutes looking up gas prices and driving out of my way to go to a cheaper gas station, it's not worth saving 30 cents a gallon on gas. My local Costco regularly has 20 minute lines of drivers waiting to buy cheaper gas (though it's possible that one family member is shopping and the other is waiting for gas). If I see a line at my preferred gas station, I'll use the one down the street that I know is 15 cents more expensive.
Maybe my 11 gallon gas tank just isn't big enough for significant savings, but I really wonder whether these gas price apps are worth it.
What more can you say?
Removed from my fone
They have a website, you know...
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
Regular prices are displayed everywhere and the gas stations compete to some degree, at least locally. However there's still generally a 15% variation between towns where there is a lot of competition and towns where there isn't.
Premium (91/95) prices on the other hand, at least around here (CT), are not displayed and can vary widely. I had an experience in NJ a couple of months ago where it was literally 2.99 at one gas station and 3.59 *across the street*. So yes, shopping around for gas can be worth it if you'd rather pay $100/week for gas than $150/week.
If they are getting too onerous, I would consider something else. I really have enjoyed the savings though. Unlike the first commenter, I regularly see savings of 10-15 cents per gallon. With an 18 gallon tank, that could mean $2.70 in savings...much more than 30 cents. It also does not take very long... And when you are in an unfamiliar area, it has benefits for savings and simply locating gas! Going to read the new terms now...
I have an Android, Samsung Galaxy 5 and I have found the app very useful.
If I go into the 'App Info' and click "Force Stop" does that prevent it from collecting and forwarding information?
Time > money. Buy gas where it's on the way. If you have to go out of your way, you've lost any savings.
Is when an app's privacy policy or TOS change, the app should be uninstalled/disabled and the user would have to install/enable it again if they accept the new TOS.
Where the heck did you read this? The app still doesn't ask for any of that.
What part of "will not honor a web browser's 'do not track' setting" did you find so difficult to understand?
Can someone explain the value of collecting data on battery strength, phone temperature, etc. ?
Seriously, they must be able to monetize that (why else risk alienating customers) but how?
What is the monetary value in knowing my phone temp?
Pretending this is my office full of bitter coworkers..
Can someone explain the value of collecting data on battery strength, phone temperature, etc. ? Seriously, they must be able to monetize that (why else risk alienating customers) but how? What is the monetary value in knowing my phone temp?
I can only guess that they are using the phone temperature, location and the battery strength to estimate the radius of available gas choices that they should show you. Temperature effects the battery life, although it would be easier to snapshot the battery life at regular intervals than guess the temperatures effect on the battery. Location by itself at least established the location around which they should show gas prices, but location over time gives speed and helps them anticipate where to show next, or maybe a radius of how far out to show based on speed. I don't have the app or know how it presents the data, so I am just guessing here.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Everything about you they can get, all day long, as long as the app is running.
They'll figure out what they can make money off later. Like, do people buy more gas in the winter or summer.
This is just greedy assholes maximizing both greedy and asshole. And this why I look at apps as basically ads and analytics in disguise, and why I don't feel compelled to have a smart phone with a data plan.
You can always not play the damned game.
Me, I want Android to return the ability to selectively turn off stuff that apps can do. If your app keels over because I won't let it access my contacts, I don't want your fucking app.
I view most apps as about the same as if a retail store demanded the ability to rifle through my wallet before I came in the store, only in the case of apps it's pretty much all the time.
No thanks.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I didn't live and die by Gas Buddy, but I did find it useful. Just not useful enough to bare my soul quite as far as they are now requiring.
This has been a test. If this had been an actual Sig, you would have been amused.
What more can you say?
This really. If they aren't spying on you now, they will in the future. If they are already spying on you, they'll be collecting even more data from you in the future. If you put enough "anonymous" data together it becomes personal. Leave it to greed to destroy something that could have been great. Shame on the people who cheer for these pieces of shit.
I like the app and use it once in a while. The prices near me can be quite different. My local Costco is not so local but usually BJ's or Sams have the cheapest prices. A while back I did an update for GasBuddy and was presented with a huge ad across the middle of the screen in the list view. I usually do not mind ads in the free versions but this was obtrusive.
As quickly as I had updates the app, it was uninstalled. I then went to the Amazon App store and installed an older version, much older, and it was better, much better! Knowing there is a big obtrusive advertisement in the update / upgrade, I see no reason the make any changes. The older version is running fine on both a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 (Kit Kat?), and a Samsung Galaxy S4 running Lollipop.
If you don't like the Play Store app, get the one from Amazon, then ignore the reminders to update the app.
10 million installs, 260 million drivers. So 1 in 26 drivers has this app. I find that hard to believe. It seems like if it was that popular, that I would have heard about it. On a similar note, one of our local news channels has local gas prices on their website.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
If you take a crap at work every day and spend ten minutes in the crapper, that's 50 minutes for a 5 day work week. 50 x 48 weeks, assuming vacation, sick days, and assorted holidays = 2400 minutes, or 40 hours. That's a free week's pay for pooping!
Why does the Zipcar app need to access my phones camera?
Bye gas buddy. App deleted.
Sounds to me like someone got a private investment firms backing behind the scenes.. Sad News Indeed
App gasbuddy no longer has permission to do fuck all.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Me, I want Android to return the ability to selectively turn off stuff that apps can do. If your app keels over because I won't let it access my contacts, I don't want your fucking app.
You can
The built in app ops in previous versions of android were almost deliberately unhelpful anyway. If an app was blocked from accessing something it wanted (but should have been non-essential) it would usually crash, so you were left with a take-it-or-leave-it choice. It was almost as if google wanted to discourage people actually using app ops. A useful privacy manager needs options to send both fake (user configurable) and empty data sets to a hostile app.
Seriously, they must be able to monetize that (why else risk alienating customers) but how?
Isn't it possible that these features are needed to help the app work better? If your phone is running hot and low on battery maybe it'll update its map less frequently.
If your phone is rooted, you want xprivacy (requires xposed). It lets you selectively control what info apps can access, plus it'll feed fake info to the app which refuses to run if you don't let it view your contacts or location or whatever. Works with Android 4.x, requires the alpha version of xposed for Lollipop.
That is the reason why I bought a OnePlusOne with CyanogenMod. You have control over what each app can access.
I used to run xprivacy but really it was a gargantuan pain in the arse. The sheer number of options for every app at every update meant spending more time playing with the stupid privacy settings then actually using my phone.
My comparison AppOps was an awesome tool. Simple and to the point.
I have noticed on many "free" apps that a user gives up a lot of information just for that "free" app. Gas Buddy is not so great and unless you saving .15 to .20 cents
a gallon are you really going to waste more gas going very far to get a few cents savings? I guess for the anal shopper who craves to save. Maybe the Gas Buddy
is a god. But for me I drive more conservatively these days and probably save way more money in gas doing that.
But the question today is on privacy and it goes without saying that many apps mine far more information then is needed to use the app. Gas Buddy is one example, but there are many more out there. If you really like Gas Buddy use it through a web browser rather then the app. Stop giving away your privacy for a stupid free app.
It's simple. Either you give your apps devs money for their work or you pay by being tracked, packaged and sold to people who develop extensive profiles of you.
Those people in turn sell their aggregated intel on you to the highest bidder (that would be the "our business partners" part of your TOS) .
That highest bidder repurposes that information to any purpose that highest bidder feels like, with near-term and future disastrous effects on your life, your ability to make a living, your ability to get a loan, your ability to associate with who you want, your ability to pursue your life's goals, you know, your freedom.
I like the first business model a lot better. I HAVE paid for Ubuntu, Blur, NoScript, private email and a bunch of other privacy preserving tools I depend on. .
Services that come at you with a business model of free as in beer make you pay in free as in freedom.
I'll just add GasBuddy to Greenify's list, and not care.
Why don't I care? Because I'm already sending my GPS coordinates to GasBuddy when I use it, as part of the app's basic functionality. If it wants to gather up some more stats like nearby Bluebooth and Wifi when I use it, I don't care: They've already got the most personal of my personal data.
Kid-proof tablet..
I installed that app years ago. Registered it, contributed to it. Around 6 months or so, somehow I wasn't registered anymore. Yet they still have my e-mail address. Then they started sending me e-mails. They wanted me to do stuff. Everybody around here is within a cent or two anyhow. So why am I concerned about this? Something changed over there. Think I'll de-install it. Besides, Waze has that stuff too I think.
I have 2 cars - one gets about 15-16mpg and has a 20 gallon tank + 3 gallon reserve; while the other gets about 30mpg and has a 10 gallon tank + 0.6 gallon thimble because... at 0.6 gallons I'm not sure why they bothered. But anyway, depending on where I'm going there might be 40 or 50 miles between towns and/or gas stations so it can be important to know whether I should stop and fill up in town A even though I might have 1/4 or 1/8 of a tank; or if I'll make it to town B but probably be on fumes (I also have AAA premier just in case, but so far, so good).
Because I drive between 500 and 1,000 miles a week on average (sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes I do that much in a day) - all up I spend probably $400 a month on gas but I'm brimming my tank 3 times a week or so. Gasbuddy is useful for me simply because it can help me decide where to fill up based on where I'm going and helps me schedule breaks because some interstates are a bit monotonous.
And I use it with a hotspot (actually 2 hotspots - because mobile coverage from any given carrier isn't always perfect) so most of the time, the only wifi it's going to be detecting are my hotspot SSIDs, and as for bluetooth... I have some Bluetooth headphones but that's about it, so whoopdidoo.
I use Gasbuddy in conjunction with Fuel Buddy to track my mileage and other auto-related expenses, but I can see why you'd not really need to bother with such an app if you are only driving 20-50 miles a day and only filling up once a week or less.
Founder & COO, Hayai India (hayai.in) / USA (hayaibroadband.com)
Me, I want Android to return the ability to selectively turn off stuff that apps can do
FYI, you can do this in BlackBerry10 OS.
A GasBuddy app update hit my phone this morning (was offered, but I didn't byte). Amongst other things, GasBuddy wants to CONTROL my Bluetooth. Why is that?
There is no reason but this lack of privacy feature basically gives them more info than your bff or parents or kids might know about you. And you voluntarily signed that right away. Harmless and weird at best, life ruining at worst.
I can agree with you and where is the outcry from the public and the law since companies seem to have no ability for sensibible boundaries.