hi there

So I've been warning people to not use the tumblr live feature and i had this discussion in the notes of one of the people i warned

said person already used live themselves and was not aware of what all TumblrLive's partner MEETME collects with its feature and i wanted to take the time to make a post going over the privacy policy for anyone who is interested

for the first part here MEETME talks about how creating an account (downloading) (or having a tumblr account that auto updated to include the tumblr live feature (which is a vast majority of the tumblr mobile population in the US rn)) automatically makes any information they collect visible to any of the partners they have

the three partners mentioned there Skout Flurv and Boy Ahoy are all dating sites that promote primarily their location tracking fuck all knows what they want with your live data most likely they want to advertise singles near you??? but MEETME's other current partners are apps like PlentyfFish Zoosk Chispa and Badoo which is Match.com and Bumble

the main important parts to notice from section ii of the privacy policy is the location information limit mobile ad tracking and do not track signals the rest of the section mainly puts the onus of revealing private information that can be used maliciously on the user ie. don't share your password say your full name in a live video where you live etc.

as far as the location information goes what its saying here is that they collect the location information when you first register for tumblr live when you first log in and whenever your phone is on even if youre not using tumblr live

what does it use this information for??? well advertising purposes of course!!!

now they try to get around saying they dont track your location or share it with other users by using this word precise several times now what that means is they have a rough geotag of your location

(your ip address they dont say here its your ip address but in later parts of the document they do in fact say they collect your ip address and if you want an idea how close an ip address can get to your exact location enter your ip address in google maps sometime)

theyre being intentionally vague about that so when you see on the live tab something that says near you you could probably not follow that exactly to said persons house but you can damn well be you will at the very least find their city

heres a reminder to all of you who havent most phones now bury in the settings an option to disable adID do it now!!! but remember that TumblrLive can still use all other information they gather they do not at all process do not track signals so you arent safe there and what data would that be that they can collect other than your location and adID??? glad you asked!!!

this is a non exhaustive list which means there is DEFINITELY other data they collect about and from you

so they collect:

your email and phone number

any info in your tumblr bio

any metadata connected to any photo youve ever uploaded

adID

ip address

cookies and beacon

which devices you use

which features you use

which pages you visit

which chats you use

anything in your private chats or posts

anything from any connected social media accounts

how well ads are doing

what youre interested in

and in some cases even your biometric information

and what do they do with this information???

ads of course

and to give anything they want to cops :)

i dont make this post in order to like ruin peoples fun when it comes to this new feature or to try to talk down to anyone or make anyone feel stupid or anything im not here to make fun of people or belittle anyone but i think its real fucking important people know what privacy rights they are forfeiting by having their phone on right now with this new feature

This is a lot of text just to tell you the main thing you can do is DONT use Live.

BUT YOU CAN DO MORE. YOU CAN BLOCK ITS CONNECTIONS FROM YOUR PHONE ENTIRELY.

Step 1) Install a DNS-based adblocker if you don't have one. The best one available on Android and iOS is Blokada. It's free to use and straightforward to set up.

Step 2) Block any domains that look related to Tumblr Live. So far I've blocked:

api.gateway.tumblr-live.com

auth.gateway.tumblr-live.com

tmg-stream.gateway.tumblr-live.com

video-api.gateway.tumblr-live.com

video-live.gateway.tumblr-live.com

assets.video.tumblr-live.com

But if you see any others that look suspicious, block them too!

You want to install Blokada 5, which is free. If the first thing you see on Blokada.org is "Cloud" or "Plus," you need to scroll the page.

Patiently waiting in bed to get fucked like -

cass elliot, 1967.