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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.
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..
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.