Gay dating app Grindr, which has over 3.6 million users around the world, has announced it will stop sharing the HIV status of its users with third-party analytics companies.

The company had been sharing the HIV status of users with analytics companies Localytics and Apptimize, which were paid to examine how the app is being used and to optimize its performance.

On March 2, Grindr chief technology officer Scott Chen explained in a news release that Grindr has never sold personally identifiable user information (including HIV status or last testing dates) to third parties or advertisers. He added that the analytics companies are under strict contractual terms for confidentiality, user privacy, and data security, and that there are data policies to protect users' privacy from disclosure.

Chen added that Grindr is a public forum, and users can decide whether or not to post information about their HIV status or last testing date, which become public.

Later on March 2, chief security officer Bryce Case announced that the company would stop sharing information with Localytics "to allay people's fears".  The change will become effective with the next app update.

Case said that the HIV data had only been shared with Apptimize as part of a rollout of new features on the app, such as an optional feature to remind users to get tested for HIV. He added that the company stopped sharing data when the feature was rolled out in the last week of March.

The Localytics announcement came after BuzzFeed news reported that Norwegian non-profit research organization SINTEF (or the Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research) produced a report (commissioned by Swedish broadcaster SVT, which first publicized the results) that stated HIV statuses were linked to GPS data, phone IDs, and emails, thereby making it possible to identify users and their HIV status.