Anya E.R. Prince: I Tried to Keep My Pregnancy Secret

[Nevilledog]

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The Atlantic
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"I took annoying and time-consuming steps to bolster my privacy. I bought prenatal vitamins and pregnancy tests in person with cash, without using rewards or loyalty programs," writes @_anyaprince:

theatlantic.com
I Tried to Keep My Pregnancy Secret
I did everything I could think of to prevent advertisers and apps from knowing I was expecting. They found out anyways, and at the worst possible time.
11:03 AM · Oct 10, 2022

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/can-you-hide-your-pregnancy-era-big-data/671692/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/6FOtE

When I became pregnant, my partner and I, like many expectant individuals, opted not to tell our friends until after the first trimester. But I had an additional goal: for my friends to learn of my pregnancy before advertisers did. I’m a health-privacy scholar, so I know that pregnant individuals are of particular interest to retailers because their purchasing habits change during pregnancy and after birth. Companies are eager to send targeted ads and capture a new customer base. In an attempt to avoid this spamming and, frankly, to see if it was possible, I endeavored to hide my private health status from the advertising ecosystemof

My first step was to not directly tell any companies that I was pregnant. I didn’t download “femtech” products that track ovulation, provide cat videos while confirming a pregnancy result, or give updates on a fetus’s growth. With many of these apps, users must agree that their data can be sold. And user agreements are not always foolproof. In one case, the Federal Trade Commission alleged that a femtech company shared consumers’ health details with companies such as Facebook and Google in ways at odds with the user agreement. (The company entered into a settlement agreement without admitting wrongdoing.) I missed out on knowing when my child would be the size of a grape, but I knew my data would be kept privatesector

I also needed to be wary of ways that companies could piece together my health status. In a famous example reported in The New York Times Magazine, Target identified pregnant shoppers based on purchases for products such as unscented lotion, vitamins, and cotton balls. Data from internet searches, social-media posts, and GPS locations could theoretically tip off a company to a pregnancy. Armed with this knowledge, I took annoying and time-consuming steps to bolster my privacy. I bought prenatal vitamins and pregnancy tests in person with cash, without using rewards or loyalty programs. On the internet, I tried tactics such as using a VPN and non-tracking search engines. I was cautious when going to medical appointments. Knowing the link between location and health status, I turned off my phone’s GPS or left it at home during appointmentsand

Yet, because of the lack of data privacy in the U.S., the day finally came when I lost my battle to keep my reproductive information private. I was sitting on my couch scrolling through social media when I saw it: an advertisement for diapers. It appeared the same week that we lost the pregnancyand

*snip*

[Johnny2X2X]

1. Red states

Watch, they're going to start using this in Red States to fit pregnant women with ankle monitors so they can control their wear abouts.

What's important for people right now is to acknowledge that GOPers in these states right now are struggling with how to limit pregnant women from traveling out of states. They haven't quite worked it out, but they're trying.

[crickets]

2. Situations like this underscore

how privacy has been so thoroughly stripped from our lives.

[Earth-shine]

3. I wonder ... did her Dr's office provide the data to the wrong vendor?

[Zeitghost]

4. Doubtful

I'm not sure how we even know her pregnancy factored into it. She is a woman of child bearing age, it's entirely possible the diaper ad had loose targeting criteria and her known data without the pregnancy was enough to make her a match.