MAD Grades
MAD produces a grade for each category and a grade for the app based on all of the category grades. The grades are generally defined as follows.
A = Ideal, indicates that an app is doing everything technically practical to protect your personal information, over and above what the strictest laws require.
B = Strictest Regulatory Standard, means the app’s Terms and Policies meet the requirements of the leading laws that govern the treatment of users’ personal information as determined by MAD.
C
= Market+, indicates the app follows some, but not all, of the strictest regulatory standards, in safeguarding your personal information.
D = Market, indicates that the app deals with your personal information in a way that is standard practice in the marketplace.
F = Exploitative, means beware
— the app is not protecting your personal information in any
meaningful way, or is out-and-out taking advantage of you.
MAD Privacy Categories
Our methods are based on categories that together describe the level and nature of privacy you either retain or give up when you use an app’s services. These categories include,
Control - How much control of your personal info you give the app
Use – How your personal info is used
Notice – Whether the app notifies you about what it does with your personal info
Permanence – How long the app keeps your personal info
Business Model – How the app owner’s business affects its use of your personal info
Invasiveness – What types, sources, and amount of your personal info the app collects
Character – Whether the app is ethical in how it treats your personal info
Alignment – Whether the app’s approach to settling a dispute is fair and straightforward
Agency – Whether the app takes responsibility for your personal information when it shares it
Transparency – Whether the app is forthright in its practices for dealing with your personal information
Findings, Concerns, Settings, and Excerpts
MAD also produces Findings, Concerns, Settings and Excerpts, which are defined as follows.
Findings – What MAD found in your app’s terms and policies regarding how much they protect your personal information —like your name, address, location, etc. — from abuses.
Concerns – These are any and all findings that concern our analysts when they study an app’s treatment of your personal information. We list these as “Significant Concerns,” if MAD’s analysis suggests abusive practices, and “Other Concerns,” if MAD’s analysis suggests practices that might be concerning to some consumers.
Settings – Instructions and Guidance for how to change your settings to reduce your risk of abuse when using an app.
Excerpts – Quotes we found in an app’s Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and other related material upon which we base a grade. Excerpts may be a few words, entire sentences, paragraphs, or pages.
Other Important Details
The basis of our analysis – We base our analysis on the app version released in the US. Our analyses are always timestamped and reflect MAD’s assessment based on the information available as of that day. We conduct regular status checks on the apps in our database.
We don’t guess and you shouldn’t have to – Consumer privacy regulations require each app owner to disclose how it treats your personal information. So, if we can’t find mention of an app’s particular treatment of your personal information in its materials, we assume it’s substandard.
Our aim is to apply common sense – After all, that’s what you would do if you had the time to read through all those documents yourself. Does the app say what personal information it collects from and about you, and what it does with it? Does it tell you that in a way that is easy to find and understand? We assign a grade on how well they do those things, from A to F. That’s it!
MAD In A Nutshell
MAD’s proprietary tools and processes produce a systematic and consistent evaluation of every category and overall app we’ve graded. Our hope is that, with your support, someday soon our grades and the findings behind them will lead to treatment that meets or exceeds the strictest regulatory standard, as well as clear and complete disclosure!
We practice what we preach. We don’t capture your personal data. We don’t need it to do our work for you, period. Should you choose to subscribe to our services, we hand you off to Google to collect and validate your credit card information. That’s it. We don’t know your email address, you don’t need to login, we don’t track your activities or anything like that.
WE DON’T EVEN KNOW YOUR NAME!™