Saw this today and now I’m reconsidering if Boost is right for me. I’m really hoping this is shitty boiler plate that was accidentally copied and over looked because that is some bullshit to say “unless we decide we want to use your personal data for whatever we want”.
I know “legitimate interest” is a phrase from the cookies law but there is no legitimate interest justification for this. My data is my data and I decide who has a legitimate interest in it so advertisers can fuck off, as can Boost if this the direction it’s going.
Edit to say this blew up. I didn’t realise I was kicking as big a hornet’s nest and haven’t read all the comments yet.
To be clear, what I don’t like about this and other provisions in the terms is the language and implications around data use. I’ve no problem with ads being shown - I want developers to get paid for the work they do and that makes it possible for users to have “free” access to software if they can’t afford to purchase.
I also want to add the response from Boost’s dev below to make sure it’s visible. You’ll see that it is boilerplate but required by Google and was present in Boost for reddit. I just hadn’t seen it because I purchased it immediately based on a recommendation. It doesn’t make me happy about it but does remove some doubts I was having about the direction Boost is heading.
I will be purchasing the app to support the dev because I do like Boost but I understand not everyone can afford everything so you’ll see some other suggestions in the comments below that don’t have any ads if you’re not happy with the free version and ads with their associated loss of data privacy.
Dev here.
The dialog and its content is not created by me, it is a standard solution from Google to comply with GDPR and other laws. More info here: https://support.google.com/admob/answer/10114014?hl=en
The consent dialog is also required by Google AdMob to show ads, and it is shown when the ad network is initialized.
When the app launches, first it checks for the remove ads purchase, and if it is not present, it will initialize the ads sdk. The ad network is not initialized if the remove ads purchase is detected.
Boost for Reddit was using the very same ad networks and consent dialog.
legitimate interest is a shitty data privacy loophole
Hi could you give me your name, address, social security number, browser history, sickness history, political affiliation, sexual orientation, pay grade please 🥺
I have a legitimate interest! It’s identity theft
It isn’t. Just as declaring yourself a sovereign citizen isn’t a loophole for whatever idiots claim it’s a loophole for, declaring illegitimate use legitimate isn’t a loophole.
Actual examples for legitimate use: Storing someone’s address if he wants to send you something, using someone’s IP-address to serve him data while he’s on your site… If it’s necessary it’s legitimate.
Deutsche Bahn is being sued right now just because of this, here’s the initiative that is suing them: https://digitalcourage.de/
Send a few bucks their way instead of spreading false information on the Internet.
What if I determine that selling user data is necessary to my business? Then it falls under legitimate interest, right? I guess what I’m asking is how using the legitimate interest label is any different?
It’s a clause within GDPR which is usually misinterpreted and sometimes (as is most probably the case here) abused.
Wife : “Promise you won’t have sex with my sister”.
Husband : " I won’t have sex with your sister under any circumstances, (quiet part); unless I have a legitimate interest in doing so."
Unity: unilaterally, retroactively, and silently amends prenup so that it technically allows sleeping with wife’s sister
Voyager and Jerboa are both good options if this bothers you. I didn’t have to agree to any permissions when I installed both as no data is collected. No ads too!
This is big no no for me.
From what the usual audience of Lemmy is, it might legitimately be worth looking into another ad provider focused on privacy and non-intrusive ads. One possible candidate for this might be Carbonads, a few other platforms and websites like Modrinth also use it.
I’ve not gotten that message at all tbh.
Infinity is a good option
Use something FOSS.
Tis is not not ok, actually. I’m a software dev for a European company. I’m briefed by our lawyers.
“Legitimate use” isn’t just a phrase from cookie law, it has a very specific meaning.
What’s legitimate use? Well, any data I necessarily have to store for our business relation I can store. For as long as I need it. For example: You want me to send you something? Gonna need to store your address. After I sent the package I don’t have any need for your address any more so I’d need your explicit consent to store it longer.
Another example for what is considered personal data: IP addresses. Which I store for as long as you watch my site, so that would be another example for a legitimate reason to store personal data.
Still I don’t get why they display this banner. To my knowledge it’s not necessary to inform the user about storage for legitimate reasons.
All that said, there’s plenty of examples of companies illegitimately storing personal data, google is a good example they were sued only yesterday (fitbit)
Not being FOSS disqualifies any lemmy client for me, I dont want a client that undermines what I like about the platform.
Ditto. I’m on Jerboa and loving the ad-free experience.
That’s what I’ve been “missing”!!! I haven’t seen an ad for months. Yay Lemmy 😁
I’ve seen the jerboa dev community grow tremendously and the app improve by leaps and bounds too! Nowadays it basically exceeds my old RIF experience in every way except for the traffic level on lemmy vs reddit.
Wait…why are you here then?
If you mean Lemmy: Lemmy is an open source and decentralized alternative to Reddit.
If you mean /c/boost, it gets federated to my instance.
Since there have been a few posts and comments about this and people are speculating
@rmayayo@lemmy.world
Could you clarify how the ads trackers and privacy policy works? Does it all go away when you pay for no ads?
How about we do anyway…fuck you. We don’t actually need your consent. We need to present the perception that we care about you. This is just a round about way to actually get consent and scrape every fucking piece of data you give.
Why is that even legal. Either way, you can just use open apps for lemmy at least.
I was waiting for Boost release, but after reading this I must say goodbye Boost, I enjoyed using you in Reddit days.
Yeah ouch, you can easily block the ads but I was still going to pay to support the dev, but not until this is clarified.
