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Faking Data

Interesting story about how women balance their need for help with managing their pregnancy and protecting their privacy

Women who did use the apps found ways to obscure their identity, using a system of aliases and throwaway email addresses or only recording scraps of information without giving away the full picture of their health.

One woman who said she had miscarried while tracking her pregnancy said she stopped using the app, and started using another, for fear the information could be misused by health-care providers to prioritize other patients. She said she also hated being reminded of her loss.

It's heart-warming to learn that people are learning how to beat the system while continuing to derive value from it. The line between being useful and being blatantly intrusive that businesses routinely cross these days, can be clarified by customers themselves. Once intrusion becomes unprofitable, it will die a natural death. 

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