Category: UNCATEGORIZED

In the last decade we’ve seen massive changes in how we consume and interact with our world. The Yellow Pages is a concept that has to be meticulously explained with an impertinent scoff at our own age. We live within our smartphones, within our apps.

While we thrive with the information of the world at our fingertips, we casually throw away any semblance of privacy in exchange for the convenience of this world.

This line we straddle has been drawn with recklessness and calculation by big tech companies over the years as we’ve come to terms with what app manufacturers, large technology companies, and app stores demand of us.

Our private data into the cloud

According to Symantec, 89% of our Android apps and 39% of our iOS apps require access to private information. This risky use sends our data to cloud servers, to both amplify the performance of the application (think about the data needed for fitness apps) and store data for advertising demographics.

While large data companies would argue that data is not held for long, or not used in a nefarious manner, when we use the apps on our phones, we create an undeniable data trail. Companies generally keep data on the move, and servers around the world are constantly keeping data flowing, further away from its source.

Once we accept the terms and conditions we rarely read, our private data is no longer such. It is in the cloud, a term which has eluded concrete understanding throughout the years.

A distinction between cloud-based apps and cloud computing must be addressed. Cloud computing at an enterprise level, while argued against ad nauseam over the years, is generally considered to be a secure and cost-effective option for many businesses.

Even back in 2010, Microsoft said 70% of its team was working on things that were cloud-based or cloud-inspired, and the company projected that number would rise to 90% within a year. That was before we started relying on the cloud to store our most personal, private data.

Cloudy with a chance of confusion

To add complexity to this issue, there are literally apps to protect your privacy from other apps on your smart phone. Tearing more meat off the privacy bone, these apps themselves require a level of access that would generally raise eyebrows if it were any other category of app.

Consider the scenario where you use a key to encrypt data, but then you need to encrypt that key to make it safe. Ultimately, you end up with the most important keys not being encrypted. There is no win-win here. There is only finding a middle ground of contentment in which your apps find as much purchase in your private data as your doctor finds in your medical history.

The cloud is not tangible, nor is it something we as givers of the data can access. Each company has its own cloud servers, each one collecting similar data. But we have to consider why we give up this data. What are we getting in return? We are given access to applications that perhaps make our lives easier or better, but essentially are a service. It’s this service end of the transaction that must be altered.

App developers have to find a method of service delivery that does not require storage of personal data. There are two sides to this. The first is creating algorithms that can function on a local basis, rather than centralized and mixed with other data sets. The second is a shift in the general attitude of the industry, one in which free services are provided for the cost of your personal data (which ultimately is used to foster marketing opportunities).

Of course, asking this of any big data company that thrives on its data collection and marketing process is untenable. So the change has to come from new companies, willing to risk offering cloud privacy while still providing a service worth paying for. Because it wouldn’t be free. It cannot be free, as free is what got us into this situation in the first place.

Clearing the clouds of future privacy

What we can do right now is at least take a stance of personal vigilance. While there is some personal data that we cannot stem the flow of onto cloud servers around the world, we can at least limit the use of frivolous apps that collect too much data. For instance, games should never need access to our contacts, to our camera and so on. Everything within our phone is connected, it’s why Facebook seems to know everything about us, down to what’s in our bank account.

This sharing takes place on our phone and at the cloud level, and is something we need to consider when accepting the terms on a new app. When we sign into apps with our social accounts, we are just assisting the further collection of our data.

The cloud isn’t some omnipotent enemy here, but it is the excuse and tool that allows the mass collection of our personal data.

The future is likely one in which devices and apps finally become self-sufficient and localized, enabling users to maintain control of their data. The way we access apps and data in the cloud will change as well, as we’ll demand a functional process that forces a methodology change in service provisions. The cloud will be relegated to public data storage, leaving our private data on our devices where it belongs. We have to collectively push for this change, lest we lose whatever semblance of privacy in our data we have left.

In the last decade we’ve seen massive changes in how we consume and interact with our world. The Yellow Pages is a concept that has to be meticulously explained with an impertinent scoff at our own age. We live within our smartphones, within our apps.

While we thrive with the information of the world at our fingertips, we casually throw away any semblance of privacy in exchange for the convenience of this world.

This line we straddle has been drawn with recklessness and calculation by big tech companies over the years as we’ve come to terms with what app manufacturers, large technology companies, and app stores demand of us.

Our private data into the cloud

According to Symantec, 89% of our Android apps and 39% of our iOS apps require access to private information. This risky use sends our data to cloud servers, to both amplify the performance of the application (think about the data needed for fitness apps) and store data for advertising demographics.

While large data companies would argue that data is not held for long, or not used in a nefarious manner, when we use the apps on our phones, we create an undeniable data trail. Companies generally keep data on the move, and servers around the world are constantly keeping data flowing, further away from its source.

Once we accept the terms and conditions we rarely read, our private data is no longer such. It is in the cloud, a term which has eluded concrete understanding throughout the years.

A distinction between cloud-based apps and cloud computing must be addressed. Cloud computing at an enterprise level, while argued against ad nauseam over the years, is generally considered to be a secure and cost-effective option for many businesses.

Even back in 2010, Microsoft said 70% of its team was working on things that were cloud-based or cloud-inspired, and the company projected that number would rise to 90% within a year. That was before we started relying on the cloud to store our most personal, private data.

Cloudy with a chance of confusion

To add complexity to this issue, there are literally apps to protect your privacy from other apps on your smart phone. Tearing more meat off the privacy bone, these apps themselves require a level of access that would generally raise eyebrows if it were any other category of app.

Consider the scenario where you use a key to encrypt data, but then you need to encrypt that key to make it safe. Ultimately, you end up with the most important keys not being encrypted. There is no win-win here. There is only finding a middle ground of contentment in which your apps find as much purchase in your private data as your doctor finds in your medical history.

The cloud is not tangible, nor is it something we as givers of the data can access. Each company has its own cloud servers, each one collecting similar data. But we have to consider why we give up this data. What are we getting in return? We are given access to applications that perhaps make our lives easier or better, but essentially are a service. It’s this service end of the transaction that must be altered.

App developers have to find a method of service delivery that does not require storage of personal data. There are two sides to this. The first is creating algorithms that can function on a local basis, rather than centralized and mixed with other data sets. The second is a shift in the general attitude of the industry, one in which free services are provided for the cost of your personal data (which ultimately is used to foster marketing opportunities).

Of course, asking this of any big data company that thrives on its data collection and marketing process is untenable. So the change has to come from new companies, willing to risk offering cloud privacy while still providing a service worth paying for. Because it wouldn’t be free. It cannot be free, as free is what got us into this situation in the first place.

Clearing the clouds of future privacy

What we can do right now is at least take a stance of personal vigilance. While there is some personal data that we cannot stem the flow of onto cloud servers around the world, we can at least limit the use of frivolous apps that collect too much data. For instance, games should never need access to our contacts, to our camera and so on. Everything within our phone is connected, it’s why Facebook seems to know everything about us, down to what’s in our bank account.

This sharing takes place on our phone and at the cloud level, and is something we need to consider when accepting the terms on a new app. When we sign into apps with our social accounts, we are just assisting the further collection of our data.

The cloud isn’t some omnipotent enemy here, but it is the excuse and tool that allows the mass collection of our personal data.

The future is likely one in which devices and apps finally become self-sufficient and localized, enabling users to maintain control of their data. The way we access apps and data in the cloud will change as well, as we’ll demand a functional process that forces a methodology change in service provisions. The cloud will be relegated to public data storage, leaving our private data on our devices where it belongs. We have to collectively push for this change, lest we lose whatever semblance of privacy in our data we have left.

Researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have created a set of fish-shaped underwater robots that can autonomously navigate and find each other, cooperating to perform tasks or just placidly school together.

Just as aerial drones are proving themselves useful in industry after industry, underwater drones could revolutionize ecology, shipping, and other areas where a persistent underwater presence is desirable but difficult.

The last few years have seen interesting new autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, but the most common type is pretty much a torpedo — efficient for cruising open water, but not for working one’s way through the nooks and crannies of a coral reef or marina.

For that purpose, it seems practical to see what Nature herself has seen fit to create, and the Wyss Institute has made a specialty of doing so and creating robots and machinery in imitation of the natural world.

In this case Florian Berlinger, Melvin Gauci, and Radhika Nagpa, all co-authors on a new paper published in Science Robotics, decided to imitate not just the shape of a fish, but the way it interacts with its fellows as well.

Having been inspired by the sight of schooling fish during scuba diving, Nagpa has pursued the question: “How do we create artificial agents that can demonstrate this kind of collective coherence where a whole collective seems as if it’s a single agent?”

Image Credits: Berlinger et al., Science Robotics

Their answer, Blueswarm, is a collection of small “Bluebots” 3D-printed in the shape of fish, with fins instead of propellers and cameras for eyes. Although neither you nor I is likely to mistake these for actual fish, they’re far less scary of an object for a normal fish to see than a six-foot metal tube with a propeller spinning loudly in the back. The Bluebots also imitate nature’s innovation of bioluminescence, lighting up with LEDs the way some fish and insects do to signal others. The LED pulses change and adjust depending on each bot’s position and knowledge of its neighbors.

Using the simple senses of cameras and a photosensor at the very front, elementary swimming motions, and the LEDs, Blueswarm automatically organizes itself into group swimming behaviors, establishing a simple “milling” pattern that accommodates new bots when they’re dropped in from any angle.

Image Credits: Berlinger et al, Science Robotics

The robots can also work together on simple tasks, like searching for something. If the group is given the task of finding a red LED in the tank they’re in, they can each look independently, but when one of them finds it, it alters its own LED flashing to alert and summon the others.

It’s not hard to imagine uses for this tech. These robots could get closer to reefs and other natural features safely without alarming the sea life, monitoring their health or looking for specific objects their camera-eyes could detect. Or they could meander around underneath docks and ships inspecting hulls more efficiently than a single craft can. Perhaps they might even be useful in search and rescue.

The research also advances our understanding of how and why animals swarm together in the first place.

With this research, we cannot only build more advanced robot collectives, but also learn about collective intelligence in nature. Fish must follow even simpler behavior patterns when swimming in schools than our robots do. This simplicity is so beautiful yet hard to discover,” said Berlinger. “Other researchers have reached out to me already to use my Bluebots as fish surrogates for biological studies on fish swimming and schooling. The fact that they welcome Bluebot among their laboratory fish makes me very happy.”

Researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have created a set of fish-shaped underwater robots that can autonomously navigate and find each other, cooperating to perform tasks or just placidly school together.

Just as aerial drones are proving themselves useful in industry after industry, underwater drones could revolutionize ecology, shipping, and other areas where a persistent underwater presence is desirable but difficult.

The last few years have seen interesting new autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, but the most common type is pretty much a torpedo — efficient for cruising open water, but not for working one’s way through the nooks and crannies of a coral reef or marina.

For that purpose, it seems practical to see what Nature herself has seen fit to create, and the Wyss Institute has made a specialty of doing so and creating robots and machinery in imitation of the natural world.

In this case Florian Berlinger, Melvin Gauci, and Radhika Nagpa, all co-authors on a new paper published in Science Robotics, decided to imitate not just the shape of a fish, but the way it interacts with its fellows as well.

Having been inspired by the sight of schooling fish during scuba diving, Nagpa has pursued the question: “How do we create artificial agents that can demonstrate this kind of collective coherence where a whole collective seems as if it’s a single agent?”

Image Credits: Berlinger et al., Science Robotics

Their answer, Blueswarm, is a collection of small “Bluebots” 3D-printed in the shape of fish, with fins instead of propellers and cameras for eyes. Although neither you nor I is likely to mistake these for actual fish, they’re far less scary of an object for a normal fish to see than a six-foot metal tube with a propeller spinning loudly in the back. The Bluebots also imitate nature’s innovation of bioluminescence, lighting up with LEDs the way some fish and insects do to signal others. The LED pulses change and adjust depending on each bot’s position and knowledge of its neighbors.

Using the simple senses of cameras and a photosensor at the very front, elementary swimming motions, and the LEDs, Blueswarm automatically organizes itself into group swimming behaviors, establishing a simple “milling” pattern that accommodates new bots when they’re dropped in from any angle.

Image Credits: Berlinger et al, Science Robotics

The robots can also work together on simple tasks, like searching for something. If the group is given the task of finding a red LED in the tank they’re in, they can each look independently, but when one of them finds it, it alters its own LED flashing to alert and summon the others.

It’s not hard to imagine uses for this tech. These robots could get closer to reefs and other natural features safely without alarming the sea life, monitoring their health or looking for specific objects their camera-eyes could detect. Or they could meander around underneath docks and ships inspecting hulls more efficiently than a single craft can. Perhaps they might even be useful in search and rescue.

The research also advances our understanding of how and why animals swarm together in the first place.

With this research, we cannot only build more advanced robot collectives, but also learn about collective intelligence in nature. Fish must follow even simpler behavior patterns when swimming in schools than our robots do. This simplicity is so beautiful yet hard to discover,” said Berlinger. “Other researchers have reached out to me already to use my Bluebots as fish surrogates for biological studies on fish swimming and schooling. The fact that they welcome Bluebot among their laboratory fish makes me very happy.”

Congratulations, you’re no longer selling your company for billions of dollars!

As strange as it sounds, that’s the leading perspective from venture capitalists concerning Plaid, now that its much-touted sale to Visa has fallen apart.

The $5.3 billion deal would have seen banking API startup Plaid join consumer payments and credit giant Visa. But the American government took a dim view of the deal, and according to Axios reporting, Plaid felt like it could be worth more money in time.

The TechCrunch team has collected views from venture capitalists, analysts and Anshu Sharma, CEO of another API-powered startup and a former VC to get a better view on the perspectives in the market concerning the blockbuster breakup.

From the venture capital side of things, most takes we received were bullish regarding Plaid’s chances now that it’s no longer being taken over by Visa. Amy Cheetham, for example, of Costanoa Ventures, said that the result is “good for the company, ultimately.” She added that Plaid may now see better “talent acquisition,” faster product decisions and a better eventual valuation.

“There is so much left for them to build in fintech infrastructure,” Cheetham said in an email, adding that she sees “Stripe-like scale potential” in Plaid. Stripe is reportedly raising capital at a valuation that could reach $100 billion.

Cheetham is not alone in her bullish perspective. Nico Berandi of Animo Ventures wrote to TechCrunch to say that he “still wishes” that his firm had been “around back then to have invested” in Plaid, adding a smiley face at the end of his missive.

In a move that could have wide ramifications across the tech landscape, Intel announced that VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger would be replacing interim CEO Bob Swann at Intel on February 15th. The question is why would he leave his job to run a struggling chip giant.

The bottom line is he has a long history with Intel, working with some of the biggest names in chip industry lore before he joined VMware in 2009. It has to be a thrill for him to go back to his roots and try to jump start the company.

“I was 18 years old when I joined Intel, fresh out of the Lincoln Technical Institute. Over the next 30 years of my tenure at Intel, I had the honor to be mentored at the feet of Grove, Noyce and Moore,” Gelsinger wrote in a blog post announcing his new position.

Certainly Intel recognized that the history and that Gelsinger’s deep executive experience should help as the company attempts to compete in an increasingly aggressive chip industry landscape. “Pat is a proven technology leader with a distinguished track record of innovation, talent development, and a deep knowledge of Intel. He will continue a values-based cultural leadership approach with a hyper focus on operational execution,” Omar Ishrak, independent chairman of the Intel board said in a statement.

But Gelsinger is walking into a bit of a mess. As my colleague Danny Crichton wrote in his year-end review of the chip industry last month, Intel is far behind its competitors, and it’s going to be tough to play catch-up:

Intel has made numerous strategic blunders in the past two decades, most notably completely missing out on the smartphone revolution and also the custom silicon market that has come to prominence in recent years. It’s also just generally fallen behind in chip fabrication, an area it once dominated and is now behind Taiwan-based TSMC, Crichton wrote.

Patrick Moorhead, founder and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy agrees with this assertion, saying that Swan was dealt a bad hand, walking in to clean up a mess that has years long timelines. While Gelsinger faces similar issues, Moorhead thinks he can refocus the company. “I am not foreseeing any major strategic changes with Gelsinger, but I do expect him to focus on the company’s engineering culture and get it back to an execution culture” Moorhead told me.

The announcement comes against the backdrop of massive chip industry consolidation last year with over $100 billion changing hands in four deals with NVidia nabbing ARM for $40 billion, the $35 billion AMD-Xilink deal, Analog snagging Maxim for $21 billion and Marvell grabbing Inphi for a mere $10 billion, not to mention Intel dumping its memory unit to SK Hynix for $9 billion.

As for VMware, it has to find a new CEO now. As Moorhead says, the obvious choice will be current COO Sanjay Poonen. Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research says it will be up to Michael Dell who to hand the reins to, but he believes Gelsinger was stuck at Dell and would not get a broader role, so he left.

“VMware has a deep bench, but it will be up to Michael Dell to get a CEO who can innovate on the software side and keep the unique DNA of VMware inside the Dell portfolio going strong, Dell needs the deeper profits of this business for its turnaround,” he said.

The stock market seems to like the move for Intel with the company stock up 7.26%, but not so much for VMware, whose stock was down close to the same amount at 7.72% as went to publication.

In a move that could have wide ramifications across the tech landscape, Intel announced that VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger would be replacing interim CEO Bob Swann at Intel on February 15th. The question is why would he leave his job to run a struggling chip giant.

The bottom line is he has a long history with Intel, working with some of the biggest names in chip industry lore before he joined VMware in 2009. It has to be a thrill for him to go back to his roots and try to jump start the company.

“I was 18 years old when I joined Intel, fresh out of the Lincoln Technical Institute. Over the next 30 years of my tenure at Intel, I had the honor to be mentored at the feet of Grove, Noyce and Moore,” Gelsinger wrote in a blog post announcing his new position.

Certainly Intel recognized that the history and that Gelsinger’s deep executive experience should help as the company attempts to compete in an increasingly aggressive chip industry landscape. “Pat is a proven technology leader with a distinguished track record of innovation, talent development, and a deep knowledge of Intel. He will continue a values-based cultural leadership approach with a hyper focus on operational execution,” Omar Ishrak, independent chairman of the Intel board said in a statement.

But Gelsinger is walking into a bit of a mess. As my colleague Danny Crichton wrote in his year-end review of the chip industry last month, Intel is far behind its competitors, and it’s going to be tough to play catch-up:

Intel has made numerous strategic blunders in the past two decades, most notably completely missing out on the smartphone revolution and also the custom silicon market that has come to prominence in recent years. It’s also just generally fallen behind in chip fabrication, an area it once dominated and is now behind Taiwan-based TSMC, Crichton wrote.

Patrick Moorhead, founder and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy agrees with this assertion, saying that Swan was dealt a bad hand, walking in to clean up a mess that has years long timelines. While Gelsinger faces similar issues, Moorhead thinks he can refocus the company. “I am not foreseeing any major strategic changes with Gelsinger, but I do expect him to focus on the company’s engineering culture and get it back to an execution culture” Moorhead told me.

The announcement comes against the backdrop of massive chip industry consolidation last year with over $100 billion changing hands in four deals with NVidia nabbing ARM for $40 billion, the $35 billion AMD-Xilink deal, Analog snagging Maxim for $21 billion and Marvell grabbing Inphi for a mere $10 billion, not to mention Intel dumping its memory unit to SK Hynix for $9 billion.

As for VMware, it has to find a new CEO now. As Moorhead says, the obvious choice will be current COO Sanjay Poonen. Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research says it will be up to Michael Dell who to hand the reins to, but he believes Gelsinger was stuck at Dell and would not get a broader role, so he left.

“VMware has a deep bench, but it will be up to Michael Dell to get a CEO who can innovate on the software side and keep the unique DNA of VMware inside the Dell portfolio going strong, Dell needs the deeper profits of this business for its turnaround,” he said.

The stock market seems to like the move for Intel with the company stock up 7.26%, but not so much for VMware, whose stock was down close to the same amount at 7.72% as went to publication.

Today shares of Affirm, a buy-now-pay-later unicorn, started trading above $90 per share, far above its $49 per-share IPO price, a figure that was already miles above the company’s early expectations.

The pop comes after Affirm raised its pricing range earlier this week, to $41 to $44 per share, up from an initial range of $33 to $38 per share. To see the company double from its raised price implies strong demand for its shares, a thin float, or both.

Affirm’s explosive debut comes on the heels of similarly-strong results from DoorDash, C3.ai, and Airbnb. Those companies’ debuts were so strong that Roblox delayed its IPO, later swapping a traditional IPO for a direct listing to get around the pricing issue.

Today’s IPO shows that the same dynamics that were at play in those IPOs have persisted into 2021. More public debuts are expected in Q1, including Coinbase, another well-known unicorn. Other names like Robinhood, Bumble, and others are in the wings.

Affirm’s first-day performance will certainly raise eyebrows from regular critics of the traditional IPO process. But the company did raise more money than it perhaps anticipated, and is having a raucous first-day’s trading, so it’s hard to fret too much for the company. If its share price is still as high in a month as it is today, perhaps it was as underpriced as some will claim.

Fintech

Affirm’s pricing brings a green splash to a busy week for fintech giants. Yesterday, Visa’s $5.3 billion acquisition of Plaid failed to go through due to regulatory concerns. While the fallen deal could have a chilling effect on fintech startups, Plaid told TechCrunch that it saw 60% customer growth in 2020, bringing it to more than 4,000 clients. Plaid’s next step, per many in the VC and tech community, will be even bigger than its once-planned $5.3 billion dollar exit.

Some tweets here to give you a sense of the momentum around fintech right now:

Affirm’s pop and Plaid’s forward-looking attitude show that the exit market for fintech feels both optimistic and energetic.

Today shares of Affirm, a buy-now-pay-later unicorn, started trading above $90 per share, far above its $49 per-share IPO price, a figure that was already miles above the company’s early expectations.

The pop comes after Affirm raised its pricing range earlier this week, to $41 to $44 per share, up from an initial range of $33 to $38 per share. To see the company double from its raised price implies strong demand for its shares, a thin float, or both.

Affirm’s explosive debut comes on the heels of similarly-strong results from DoorDash, C3.ai, and Airbnb. Those companies’ debuts were so strong that Roblox delayed its IPO, later swapping a traditional IPO for a direct listing to get around the pricing issue.

Today’s IPO shows that the same dynamics that were at play in those IPOs have persisted into 2021. More public debuts are expected in Q1, including Coinbase, another well-known unicorn. Other names like Robinhood, Bumble, and others are in the wings.

Affirm’s first-day performance will certainly raise eyebrows from regular critics of the traditional IPO process. But the company did raise more money than it perhaps anticipated, and is having a raucous first-day’s trading, so it’s hard to fret too much for the company. If its share price is still as high in a month as it is today, perhaps it was as underpriced as some will claim.

Fintech

Affirm’s pricing brings a green splash to a busy week for fintech giants. Yesterday, Visa’s $5.3 billion acquisition of Plaid failed to go through due to regulatory concerns. While the fallen deal could have a chilling effect on fintech startups, Plaid told TechCrunch that it saw 60% customer growth in 2020, bringing it to more than 4,000 clients. Plaid’s next step, per many in the VC and tech community, will be even bigger than its once-planned $5.3 billion dollar exit.

Some tweets here to give you a sense of the momentum around fintech right now:

Affirm’s pop and Plaid’s forward-looking attitude show that the exit market for fintech feels both optimistic and energetic.

The FTC has reached a settlement with Flo, a period- and fertility tracking app with 100M+ users, over allegations it shared users’ health data with third party app analytics and marketing services like Facebook despite promising to keep users’ sensitive health data private.

Flo must obtain an independent review of its privacy practices and obtain app users’ consent before sharing their health information, under the terms of the proposed settlement.

The action follows a 2019 reports in the Wall Street Journal which conducted an analysis of a number of apps’ data sharing activity.

It found the fertility tracking app had informed Facebook of in-app activity — such as when a user was having their period or had informed it of an intention to get pregnant despite. It did not find any way for Flo users to prevent their health information from being sent to Facebook.

In the announcement of a proposed settlement today, the FTC said press coverage of Flo sharing users data with third party app analytics and marketing firms including Facebook and Google had led to hundreds of complaints.

The app only stopped leaking users’ health data following the negative press coverage, it added.

Under the FTC settlement terms, Flo is prohibited from misrepresenting the purposes for which it (or entities to whom it discloses data) collect, maintain, use, or disclose the data; how much consumers can control these data uses; its compliance with any privacy, security, or compliance program; and how it collects, maintains, uses, discloses, deletes, or protects users’ personal information. 

Flo must also notify affected users about the disclosure of their personal information and instruct any third party that received users’ health information to destroy that data.

The app maker has been contacted for comment.

No financial penalty is being levied but the FTC’s proposed settlement is noteworthy as it’s the first time the US regulator has ordered notice of a privacy action.

“Apps that collect, use, and share sensitive health information can provide valuable services but consumers need to be able to trust these apps. We are looking closely at whether developers of health apps are keeping their promises and handling sensitive health information responsibly,” said Andrew Smith, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, in a statement.

While the settlement received unanimous backing from five commissioners, two — Rohit Chopra and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter — have issued a joint dissent statement in which they highlight the lack of a finding of a breach of a US’ health breach notification rule which they argue should have applied in this case.

“In our view, the FTC should have charged Flo with violating the Health Breach Notification Rule. Under the rule, Flo was obligated to notify its users after it allegedly shared their health information with Facebook, Google, and others without their authorization. Flo did not do so, making the company liable under the rule,” they write.

“The Health Breach Notification Rule was first issued more than a decade ago, but the explosion in connected health apps make its requirements more important than ever. While we would prefer to see substantive limits on firms’ ability to collect and monetize our personal information, the rule at least ensures that services like Flo need to come clean when they experience privacy or security breaches. Over time, this may induce firms to take greater care in collecting and monetizing our most sensitive information,” they add.

Flo is by no means the only period tracking app to have attracted attention for leaking user data in recent years.

A report last year by the Norwegian Consumer Council found fertility/period tracker apps Clue and MyDays unexpectedly sharing data with adtech giants Facebook and Google, for example.

That report also found similarly non-transparent data leaking going on across a range of apps, including dating, religious, make-up and kids apps — suggesting widespread breaches of regional data processing laws which require that for consent to be valid users must be properly informed and given a genuine free choice. Although app makers have so far faced little enforcement for analytics/marketing-related data leaking in the region.

In the US regulatory action around apps hinges on misleading claims — whether about privacy (in Flo’s case) or in relation to the purposes of data processing, as in a separate settlement the FTC put out earlier this week related to cloud storage app Ever.