I should have known if the apps free, you’re the product. Duolingo appears to harvest the most data compared to other language learning apps.
Source: Surfshark Research
Also, like, language learning apps suffer from the same problem as dating apps: if these apps could actually teach you a language, you’d eventually get proficient enough at the language to no longer need the app — and if you no longer need the app, then it can’t harvest your data or subscription money anymore, and line goes down. So the app always needs to give you the impression that you’re making progress, while actually sabotaging your learning at every step.
This isn’t to say that these apps don’t have a place in the language learning process, but rather I’m saying that you need to be incredibly wary not just of the privacy issues, but of how to actually use these apps effectively. If you’re aware of their tricks, then they become less effective.
Yeah duolingo is useless for me lol. I took spanish throughout highschool and I recently installed the app and the intro test shot me straight to the end. Just one year of a highschool class will teach more.
Their “Spanish for English speakers” course goes all the way through CEFR B2 proficiency. There’s no way to attain that in a year of HS Spanish unless you were in a Spanish-speaking high school, fully immersed. Some versions of the Spanish course (for other native languages) may not go as far, that’s just the one I’m working on.
if these apps could actually teach you a language, you’d eventually get proficient enough at the language to no longer need the app
If it worked for you word of mouth will spread and others will try it as well. I don’t see why these companies shouldn’t be interested in that. They might lengthen the process and not give you the most efficient solution however.
People find love through dating apps, people can learn the basics of a language through language apps. The company wins either way. Maximizing screen time is not everything.
This isn’t to say that these apps don’t have a place in the language learning process, but rather I’m saying that you need to be incredibly wary not just of the privacy issues, but of how to actually use these apps effectively. If you’re aware of their tricks, then they become less effective.
Good point. It’s hard to learn a language and if you invest the time you’ll get a good grasp on it through these apps. I leant multiple languages at school and it was really similar to what Duolingo e.g. are doing.
BUT in the end you still can’t master a language without speaking it with other people. That however, is not a service that these apps can provide. They should, however, make it possible for you to find a basic foundation for communication. The gamification aspect also helps.
Regarding the privacy argument I completely agree.
People find love through dating apps
That is part of the business model, actually: if these apps absolutely never work, then there will be no word of mouth, no success stories to use in promotional material, and users would pretty quickly figure out that it isn’t entirely their own fault that they haven’t made the progress that they’re expecting.
But this is not a big ol neocapitalistic conspiracy against someone personally. Maybe your pictures do suck, maybe your bio is perfectly written etcetc. Many reasons why it might or might not work out for you.
Those companies are not as aware of their actions as many people think. They see ‘x’ happens and they might find a way to let it happen more often, but they seldom know why it happens.
Especially when it’s about interactions between people and not just system-user interaction.
What is “customer support data” being harvested, and how much of this is actually optional?
This appears to only apply to iOS, and not Android.
It makes sense now, since it’s impossible to do some of this on Android, so far as I know.
When it says purchase history, surely that’s not all your purchases?
Also, on iOS at least, many of these would ask for permission and be met with a “that’s a no from me dawg”. Things like photos, contacts, and location data for instance.
As a professional mobile app developer most of these lines are bullshit anyways.
Purchase history? Yeah that’s just if you’ve bought subscriptions to the service. Of course we fucking know your purchase history: if we didn’t how would you get anything with a purchase?
Crash analytics? Cool we get a stack trace of what happened when it crashed. Half the time it’s not even helpful because it’s buried deep in some fucking Java library.
Things like coarse location are getting more specific and a few lines here can be used to deanonymize you when used together but (or an advertising I’d which can be used to track you no matter what) but the majority of data passed to phone devs is us frantically trying to figure out what combination of make & model of android device combined with android version caused your app to crash.
Anonymity is important and we should all take it seriously. Most of this has jack shit to do with being anonymous.
Besides: ewa is listed as a paragon here when they collect advertising data, the most targeted and least anonymous of all data gathering.
Same with Android. I have all those disabled. Still good to know it’s possible if you don’t check and enable everything. Maybe a separate shape for options you can disable would make this chart look busier but give more info.
