The OutsideOnline.com account creation occurs automatically after signing into Gaiagps.com even if users have never visited this site before. After creation, the Profile Privacy" is automatically set to "Public", and "Activity Privacy", is automatically set to "Everyone".
This is stated clearly as the policy on the company's website.
https://help.gaiagps.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403979404311-Privacy-and-Data-controls
The app has had a heatmap feature similar to Strava for years and is not the main point of contention among the community. There is a new feature "feeds" which outline the exact activity, location and time among other parameters that automatically gets shared publicly based on the new privacy settings.
It can be especially confusing for users to know exactly what their current privacy policy is as some of the information is on the Gaia GPS app, while others are on the OutsideOnline.com account page. There are even reports that recent updates have "reset" the choices that people had previously made.
https://old.reddit.com/r/GaiaGPS/comments/1f57usl/gaia_is_at_it_again_privacy/?share_id=eAK3croXfWrYWkw81dqIo
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There are numerous threads on backpacking forums outlining a decline in quality of the service, price increases, and recommendations for alternatives.
There is also a vocal theme among commenters that this change is not just an invasion of privacy, but also potentially dangerous as it could be used to create a profile of someone’s activities and when they are typically home, routes they frequent, and when their home is likely empty.
Some users also state that this is similar to how new Stava accounts are set up and the language in the privacy policies are very similar. Other users point out that Strava from the beginning was a mapping and sharing product where the sharing aspect is part of the core services. On the other hand, GaiaGPS started out as just a simple mapping app with limited sharing features that made it appealing for its those reasons. GaiaGPS was purchased and has been morphed into a competitor in the activity sharing app space while not keeping its users up to date on how their data is being used and how the services are changing.
An employee who works for Outside created a post to respond and explain questions that people may have and had a generally poor response from the community.
The representative states
"With these new settings, you can now adjust the default privacy selection that’s applied when you save a new track. However, please note that changing these default settings DOES NOT affect any of your existing data—like tracks, waypoints, routes, or other objects. All your existing map data will retain its current privacy settings, so nothing will suddenly become public.
For any track to become public, you’ll need to manually save it with the "Everyone" privacy setting. You still have full control and can always save new tracks as private."
In response, users repeatedly state that this appears to be a false statement, or the app is so unclear that they do not know what they are agreeing to. While the heatmap feature has existed for a while, the activity feed feature is new and not properly explained to users.
https://old.reddit.com/r/GaiaGPS/comments/1f4hd3k/correcting_some_confusion_around_new_default/
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https://old.reddit.com/r/Ultralight/comments/1f459sx/psa_gaia_gps_recently_added_a_new_feature_that/
https://old.reddit.com/r/Thruhiking/comments/1f3zta4/psa_gaia_gps_recently_added_a_new_feature_that/
https://old.reddit.com/r/GaiaGPS/comments/1f57usl/gaia_is_at_it_again_privacy/?share_id=eAK3croXfWrYWkw81dqIo
https://old.reddit.com/r/GaiaGPS/comments/1f4hd3k/correcting_some_confusion_around_new_default/
https://www.outsideinc.com/privacy-policy/#:%7E:text=Although%20our%20business%20model%20is,in%20the%20%E2%80%9CYour%20Choices%20and
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