fuck that. i thought they were the good guys.
using our data for crapy athlete intelligence, but at the same time disallowing others WTF.
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.Not that I use Strava or think anyone should, but the title is misleading no? It still allows third-party apps to still show you your own personal data and bans third-party apps from using that data in any machine learning.
I use Strava a ton. This update sucks.
Strava has positioned themselves as two things:
- Social media for fitness
- Data aggregator with a nice API
So there are a lot of people, like myself, who bike and use a Wahoo bike computer, or bike inside on Zwift, or run outside with a Garmin or Apple watch, and push all those activities to Strava because everything integrates with it.
Then, if you want to, you can easily tap into all that data with another platform like TrainingPeaks or Intervals.icu (I bike more than run but there are more for runners). These platforms do really fun data analytics that Strava doesn’t provide, and also have coaching integrations so your coaches can log in and you can authorize them to see your workout results, which helps them build plans for you.
Two changes from this update fuck up everything:
- Strava data can’t be shared with anyone by a third party app. Even if I want to allow it. I can’t opt in to share my own data with people I deem appropriate. So my coach can no longer see anything about my activities.
- Data pulled from Strava can’t be processed in any way. At all. This isn’t talking about feeding random AI models. Platforms like Intervals.icu, which is run by one guy and just provides lots of useful algorithms and graphs of fitness trends, now can’t do anything if your data comes from Strava. Strava is not implementing anything on their end to replace these. They’re just removing the ability to use implementations made by others.
In short, as a guy who likes training and tracking my fitness, this breaks everything for me. Many many people who casually run or bike or swim or whatever will be in the same boat as me. This sucks.
EDIT:
They have framed this as a user protection. It isn’t. No one could see my data that I hadn’t provided explicit permission for via the third party app of my choosing, after voluntarily entering my own API key.
What this does do is likely set them up to offer a paid API in a few months, so everything that is free and has been free since it’s inception will now cost these third party applications per-request to retrieve. Which is bullshit, because this data is not Strava’s - it’s mine.
This on the heels of their shitty AI summary bot experiment which was not opt-in but opt-out. There’s a 0% chance Strava built their own AI LLM so even while they’re shutting out access I explicitly invited, they’re piping all my workout data, including any activities I mark as private, straight over to OpenAI without my explicit consent unless I go through the effort to opt out.
I love all strava’s social elements, but it has just gotten worse and worse over time. We really need a federated alternative. I’ve been toying with concepts for a while, even made a bridge from Garmin to mastodon API, but the long term concern for me is that Garmin seems to be picky with official API access so it would be difficult for individual servers to import data from there or other sources.
The second you upload any data to Strava, it isn’t yours anymore.
I track my own activities in foss apps for this reason.
Where was the data processing comment
Here is a better article about this change: https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2024/11/stravas-changes-to-kill-off-apps.html
Here is the precise line that sucks: “You may not process or disclose Strava Data, even publicly viewable Strava Data, including in an aggregated or de-identified manner, for the purposes of, including but not limited to, analytics, analyses, customer insights generation, and products or services improvements. Strava Data may not be combined with other customer data, for these or any other purposes."
The whole point of Strava is getting in data from you, other riders and other companies’ gear and putting it together.
These new terms say that same data that they got from other sources they now can only keep it to themselves, and show you only what they specifically permit to show you.
Right? That’s how i read it - strava might be in the right here
I’m sure Strava would throw a fit if Garmin did the same.
Most of my data on Strava comes from Garmin
I left Strava when they adjusted their ‘freemium’ model and hid a number of things behind a paywall. Now I just use Garmin Connect, for tracking my stuff and an ‘athletic’ social circle of friends via connections/news feed.
All of that makes me nauseous.
You’re free to use what you want to use, but the layers of dependency on vulnerable product lines is exactly the problem
Yep, was thinking the same. And all the other brands of fitness devices…
Fuck Strava. After not using it for a bit it’s now pestering me to start the app again. The begging starts to get a bit creepy to be honest.
Creepier than Duo?
Probably not, but I consider „come outside!“ as pretty creepy.
Come train with us. Forever and ever and ever and ever …
I guess I’m not using Strava anymore.
Does this effect showing derived data to other people?
Something like wandrer.earth isn’t really competing, I hope that’s allowed (and doesn’t block any plans they have)
It probably affects wanderer.earth.
