As with most technologies today, the plethora of mobile apps come with lofty promises of how they will help us live a better, healthier life.  Alas, new research from TU Eindhoven suggests that the way the makers of these apps behave is often at odds with the purpose-driven motives of the apps themselves.

Instead, the paper suggests that companies are primarily driven by commercial interests, and therefore seek to exploit the data they collect from users rather than seek to better the lives of those users.

Indeed, there is often a direct tension between the promises made by the apps to improve our lives, and the way the developers make money from the data fed to them by us.

The paper provides a number of examples of the contradiction inherent in many apps on the market today:

• Instagram offers young girls autonomy and a large audience, but at the same time forces them to conform to stereotypes.
• Tinder places some users in a separate category with few matches, from which they can only escape by paying the company.
• Google sees such value in health data that they bought Fitbit for over $2 billion.
• Menstrual app Maya not only helped women keep track of their monthly cycle, but also sold their data to Facebook (which makes money from advertising), because there is a correlation between ovulation and buying behavior.

“Much of the ethical issues surrounding self-tracking technologies are related to the commercial parties that use these technologies to penetrate our most intimate domains and thus shape these spheres and relationships,” the author says.  “This has bearings on the way in which we enter into relationships with ourselves, with others and with one another.”

As such, she believes that responsibility rests with regulators and policymakers to ensure that app users don’t find themselves being exploited in ways they certainly didn’t expect when signing up with the app. She argues that this is a more equitable stance than expecting individuals to act, often with their feet, by uninstalling apps that may serve a crucial function in their life.