Hands-On Tech 282 Transcript
Please be advised that this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word-for-word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-free version of the show.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
Coming up on Hands-On Tech, what do we do about everything needing an app these days? Well, stay tuned to find out. Hello and welcome to Hands-On Tech. I am Mikah Sargent, and today we are once again taking your tech questions and while answering them. Today's tech question comes in from Joyce, who has, I think, a pretty good question for us today. Joyce writes, I— hi, Mikah. I bought a space heater. A space heater? And it wanted me to download an app, create an account, and agree to a privacy policy before the smart features would work.
Mikah Sargent [00:00:49]:
Same story with my toothbrush and my kid's nightlight. Why does everything need my email address now? What are they doing with it? And how do I opt out of this nonsense? ends without living like a hermit? Joyce from Spokane, Washington. Well, Joyce, you happen to sound like my partner, but the fact is, I understand. I get it. It is annoying that there are so many devices that didn't used to require apps and network connection that now do. So the short answer to your question is that because your email address is worth more to the company than the margin that exists for this space heater, the cost that goes into manufacturing it, the little bit of profit that the company makes, etc., then they want more than just your money. But you do have more power to opt out than you think. Let's start by talking about kind of why this happened and, you know, what we have seen change over time.
Mikah Sargent [00:01:54]:
So first and foremost, hardware margins are incredibly thin. What does that mean? It means that the amount of money that can be made on a given piece of physical hardware is not as much as you might get with software and other things. That means that they go looking for money elsewhere. Data and engagement happen to be the thing that earn companies money. That's why Apple has gotten big into the services game and the subscriptions. That's why there are so many subscription services out there. An account Takes what was once just a one-time space heater purchase and sale from the company's part into a permanent marketing relationship to continue to offer new filters, to give you points for using it so that you will go into the app and buy other things from the company. That's why they want this information.
Mikah Sargent [00:02:53]:
The account also, when you create one, feeds the machine. What do I mean by that? Well, app analytics, ad targeting, product interaction data, sometimes even location information. All of that data is collected by the company, and in many cases it gets shared with third parties and also data brokers. And, you know, we don't like to think about that, but that is the fact. And that's part of the reason why we've seen some changes in the laws. Researchers, yes, there are people who focus on this, uh, who actually read these privacy policies instead of the rest of us who just sort of skip through it. consistently find that smart device apps are collecting far beyond what the gadget ever needs. Uh, there's actually this really great tool from Surfshark, and Surfshark, uh, went through and did an analysis and found that some smart home apps are using 9 out of 10 collected data types for tracking.
Mikah Sargent [00:03:52]:
So this is like myQ. I have a myQ garage door opener. Roku. I have some Roku TVs in the home. Ecovacs. I've got an Ecovacs robot, and these are the things that are collected by, by some of them. These are the things that were checked for. Surfshark checked for device ID, email address, product interaction, user ID, name, advertising data, crash data, other usage data, and performance data.
Mikah Sargent [00:04:17]:
Those, you know, are pretty standard, but then it goes on from there. Precise location, uh, search history. Yeah, the Keurig app and the Roku app both collect search history, purchase history from Keurig, other diagnostic data from My Tony's. I'm not sure what that is. Uh, course location, browsing history, customer support, phone number, physical address, email or text messages, and then other data types as well. These apps are collecting this data. They're using it to show you targeted ads, and you can see too That Amazon and Google have the most data-hungry smart home device apps. So Amazon is collecting a whole heck of a lot of information.
Mikah Sargent [00:05:03]:
Number of collected data points, 28. And those are unique data points. That means data that can be selected directly to you, that could be traced back to you, as well as 28 linked options as well. Meaning that the data, well, the data is there, but it's not necessarily immediately clear. what, where it comes from. Now, there's a lot that you can learn from this Surfshark guidance, so I do recommend going through it. But essentially, they are trying to figure out ways to keep prices in a place that is effective for getting people to purchase, but also still make money. There's also a lock-in bonus that comes for the company.
Mikah Sargent [00:05:49]:
So if the app is the only way that you can use those smart features, Then really you don't own your own space heater, do you? Because you have to use their app to use the space heater. So you're locked in. They own your relationship with the heater that you purchased. That said, there is some hope because you usually can use the non-smart features without needing an app. So the dumb features don't require signup in many cases. When they do, it's very frustrating and I don't recommend buying those kinds of products. But if you can forego some of the smart features and just use the dumb features, then that's fine. I do those with my toothbrush.
Mikah Sargent [00:06:34]:
My toothbrush can connect, can technically connect via Bluetooth. I don't use that feature. I don't need it. I don't want it. It's cumbersome. It's annoying. So I just have it off and my toothbrush still works. The heater will heat, the toothbrush will brush, the nightlight will.
Mikah Sargent [00:06:48]:
light, and with those physical buttons, you don't technically have to have an account. So here's my suggestion for you, sort of a rule of thumb: create accounts only for devices where remote access is the actual point. Okay? If you need remote access to it— a thermostat, a doorbell, a garage door opener— then create an account. But if you only ever need to be able to control it while you're within arm's reach, don't create an account, don't worry about it. So let's kind of look at how we can mitigate some of this, right? What do we do? What do we do? Well, you can sort of set up a playbook, right? A way to know what works, what doesn't, in terms of your desires for privacy. It's unfortunate that Mozilla has stopped creating this guide that I'm about to show you. But you can still access it from the archive. And this was Mozilla's Privacy Not Included guide that has what they basically called the creepometer, or the creepometer, that would look at different devices and upon reviewing them, determine how creepy these devices were by the data that was gathered.
Mikah Sargent [00:08:07]:
So we can look at the Nintendo Switch here, for example, and see That this says privacy is not included with this product. So yeah, the company collects quite a bit of data with the camera, with the, um, location, what data the company is collecting, name, email address, postal address, phone number, date of birth, country of residence. I mean, a lot of information, a lot. So check out this guide and Mozilla's new magazine that has a lot of information about what these devices are collecting. The Verge also does a really good job when reviewing products of talking about what is collected there. And that's not the only thing you can do. Something that I do and something that you can do as well is create a junk email, or even better, Create junk emails for every single account that you sign up for. I use Fastmail.
Mikah Sargent [00:09:10]:
Fastmail has been a sponsor on the network in the past, used it long before that. And Fastmail offers a masked email service that you can basically create bespoke emails upon clicking a button that forward back to your actual account, but it keeps those emails from being linked across the web to other things. So these free, in many cases, alias addresses for gadget signups will keep your real inbox out of the data economy. And then again, you can use something like, uh, like Fastmail's masked email service that will make it so that even all— because otherwise you have a junk email that now all of these companies know is your junk email, so they're still tracking you. But with Hide My Email or this feature, you're able to kind of limit that. And then there's the deny by default approach. The app does not need your locations, your contacts, your Bluetooth, unless the app needs it. Like, if you have a product that requires one of those things, then yes, you say yes, but otherwise decline it.
Mikah Sargent [00:10:14]:
And if you're presented with the option to share analytics, don't. Say no. And head into the settings and take care of that too. Dig into— I'm not going to tell you that you've got to read every single privacy policy. Yeah, it'd be great. I wish that I did. I don't. But what you can do and what I Do, do is dig into the privacy settings.
Mikah Sargent [00:10:39]:
There are a bunch of different pages that will have opt-outs for marketing, for personalization, for data sharing. They'll try to call it different things. Opt out of all of it. The toggles are there because laws in some states require them. So you just have to find them and make use of them. And the last thing I will mention here is the EFF. Because the Electronic Frontier Foundation has, uh, this guide called Keeping Your Smart Home Secure and Private. And so this guide talks about locking down what's already in your house.
Mikah Sargent [00:11:15]:
It talks about botnets and the issues there. It talks about coordinating your smart devices with something like Home Assistant instead of using, uh, some of the other tools, creating a private mesh network at home. Lots of things that you can do to, if you're using smart devices, kind of keep them more secure. Mm-hmm. and also block them from accessing the internet in ways that you don't want them to. The app and account ritual, it's a business model. It's not an engineering requirement, right? It, you don't, in, in so many ways, there are some instances where, you know, access from, from far away does require authorization and authentication. So you do need an account, but yeah, for your space heater, if you're not planning on making sure that it's turned off when you're out of the home, Which would be a benefit of that, then you don't need the smart features.
Mikah Sargent [00:12:05]:
So it's part of the business model. And when you think of it that way, it helps to kind of reframe how you treat the product. If the buttons still work, then you're good. Use accounts only whenever you need that remote control. An alias email, denying permissions, checking these online guides before you buy, all of that is going to let you keep the convenience of these products without paying twice, right? You buying the product and then them also getting you as the product. Let's just make it so that you buy the product. So there is a look at how you can sort of better manage the fact that, yes, unfortunately, many, many, many devices, Joyce. have apps and services these days.
Mikah Sargent [00:12:57]:
Everybody's doing it, but you can protect yourself and sort of fight back against that with these tips. Thank you all so much for tuning in to this week's episode of Hands-On Tech. Always a pleasure to get to bring you this show. I'll be back next week with another episode, but until then, goodbye!
