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Strava closes the gates to sharing fitness data with other apps

(www.theverge.com)
57 points thunderbong | 2 comments | 20 Nov 24 02:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.402s | source
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paranoidrobot ◴[20 Nov 24 05:56 UTC] No.42191156[source]▶
Is it just me, or does The Verge's headline seem a bit clickbaity and not reflective of the actual change?

> "Strava closes the gates to sharing fitness data with other apps"

This doesn't seem to be the case, with the quote they cite:

     Effective November 11, the updated API agreement introduces three key changes that provide Strava users with greater control, security, and a consistent experience:

    Stronger Privacy Standards: Third-party apps may now only display a user’s Strava activity data to that specific user. Users will continue to have access to their personal Strava data across apps connected to our platform, though there may be differences in how this data appears.

    Data Use Limitations: Our terms now explicitly prohibit third parties from using any data obtained via Strava’s API in artificial intelligence models or similar applications.

    Protecting the Strava Experience: Additional terms have been added to protect Strava’s unique look and feel and functionality, helping users easily distinguish between Strava and third-party platforms.
The restrictions seem to be:

- You can only show that user's data to that user.

- You can't use user's data to train AI models.

So it seems that you can still share your data to other platforms.

Or am I missing something?

replies(3): >>42191302 #>>42192447 #>>42193608 #
1. mvkel ◴[20 Nov 24 06:34 UTC] No.42191302[source]▶
"or similar applications" is a gross broad brush.

I interpret that to mean: anything that uses AI in conjunction with Strava data (including wrapping a frontier GPT)

replies(1): >>42191626 #
2. setopt ◴[20 Nov 24 07:46 UTC] No.42191626[source]▶
I would interpret it differently. When they write in artificial intelligence models, I think they mean to train artificial intelligence models and not to just use them (like a GPT front end would). I think the “similar applications” here is avoiding the loophole of strictly defining what an AI is (does advanced statistical models count, for instance?).

But I guess we would need a lawyer to look at the full text to be sure how a court would read it.