My Body, Their Business: User Perspectives on Commercial Data Practices in FemTech mHealth Apps

FemTech, including apps for fertility, menstruation, and menopause, increasingly shapes how users manage intimate aspects of their health. Yet these apps are often built on opaque commercial models, raising ethical concerns about consent, privacy, and misuse of sensitive health data. While prior work has documented these risks, less is known about how users perceive and negotiate commercial data practices in FemTech apps. We conducted an online survey with 187 participants, combining factorial vignettes with provotypes— interface prototypes designed to provoke reflection— to examine user boundaries and discomforts around FemTech data collection and commercial use. Participants drew sharp distinctions across data types, resisting peripheral data collection and pervasive tracking. Commercial practices were often judged conditionally: tolerated only when functionally relevant. Notably, our provotypes, even under exaggerated transparency, elicited more forgiving responses to commercial practices compared to brief text descriptions in the vignettes. We discuss implications for designing transparent, accountable, and user-aligned FemTech.