I don't want to know.

December 23, 2020 4:48 PM

Is it possible to ever opt out of those "Your Year In Our App Usage" things?

Every year, I see both Spotify and Strava push out the "Your Year In How You Used Our App" things. And every year, I don't want to see them. I understand that this makes me an outlier, and I understand that this is an odd thing to want, but is there a way of opting out of even getting these things in the first place?

I know I can - and I do - ignore them when they pop up this time of year, but they pop up every single time I use the apps, I can't really dismiss them, and it makes me nuts when I'd rather not even see them at all, or have them be generated in the first place.

I can't really explain why I don't want them, other than a basic "I just really don't care about the aggregated stats of my life". I just...don't want them. It's not something I, like, fly into a rage over, and if the answer is "of course you can't", that's fine and I'll continue to just ignore them - I just couldn't see a way to opt out of these things and didn't know if there even was one.

posted by pdb to Technology (2 answers total)

I'm definitely not an expert in this, but you could contact the companies and tell them you don't like seeing this and ask for a way to opt out.

Perhaps even better, you could be well-connected on social media - or recruit a friend who is - and start a small campaign about this. If you go this route, your post title suggests a perfect theme song: Indigo Girls - I Don't Wanna Know.
posted by medusa at 5:10 PM on December 23, 2020

For Spotify you should be able to remove permission for Year In Music here (logged in of course):

https://www.spotify.com/us/account/apps/
posted by abrightersummerday at 3:26 AM on December 24, 2020