More email apps caught 'processing' and selling user data [u]
Apps such as Edison Mail are gathering data under the guise of providing personalized features, but then turn around and sell this information to big business.
Edison Mail (iOS icon, inset) is one of the apps reportedly found to be selling user data. (Background image source: Edison)
Two years after it was revealed that Google allows third-party companies to read the emails in users' Gmail accounts, more apps have been found to be doing the same when used with any email account.
The best-known of these is Edison Mail, which is an email client for both Mac and iOS. It has time-saving features such as providing one-click buttons for the people users most often email. Similarly to how iOS provides suggested next-word responses, Edison Mail prompts users with complete and appropriate canned responses.
Edison Mail's developers have been clear that this is achieved by parsing users' emails to build these lists, and offer relevant automatic responses. However, it has not said that it then uses that data for its own profit.
According to research done by Motherboard, the Edison Mail company sells products to finance, travel and e-commerce customers that is derived by scraping users' emails.
Edison's website explicitly states that data is collected from users, and it extensively details all the use that users' agree to by signing up to the service. At no point, however, does it say that it will sell this data.
It does refer repeatedly to service providers that it calls "partners."
"These service providers are authorized to use your information only as necessary to provide their services to us," it says.
Motherboard reports having obtained a document from the JP Morgan financial services company, which says that data is bought from Edison for the purpose of helping companies make investment decisions.
The document reportedly refers explicitly to Edison Mail as the source of data.
"[The data features] consumer purchase metric including brand loyalty, wallet share, purchase preferences etc," it says.
Notice the buttons under the To: heading. They're this user's most-often emailed correspondents
Edison has not responded to questions from Motherboard. However, after publication of that research, Edison has released an updated blog about its working practices.
"To keep our Edison Mail app free, and to protect your privacy by rejecting an advertising-based business model," it says, "our company Edison Software, measures e-commerce through a technology that automatically recognizes commercial emails and extracts anonymous purchase information from them. Our technology is designed to ignore personal and work email, which does not help us measure market trends."
"We do not participate in any ad targeting of our users and do not allow others to do ad targeting of our users," it continues.
The Motherboard research also reveals that email add-on services including Slice and Cleanfox sell data products to corporate clients based on user's emails. Cleanfox's parent company, Foxintelligence, did respond to Motherboard.
"From a higher perspective, we believe crowd-sourced transaction data has a transformational power both for consumers and for companies and that a marketplace where value can be created for both sides without making any compromise on privacy is possible," Florian Cleyet-Merle, Foxintelligence Chief Operating Officer said.
Updated: 13:10 ET with published comments from Edison.
Edison Mail (iOS icon, inset) is one of the apps reportedly found to be selling user data. (Background image source: Edison)
Two years after it was revealed that Google allows third-party companies to read the emails in users' Gmail accounts, more apps have been found to be doing the same when used with any email account.
The best-known of these is Edison Mail, which is an email client for both Mac and iOS. It has time-saving features such as providing one-click buttons for the people users most often email. Similarly to how iOS provides suggested next-word responses, Edison Mail prompts users with complete and appropriate canned responses.
Edison Mail's developers have been clear that this is achieved by parsing users' emails to build these lists, and offer relevant automatic responses. However, it has not said that it then uses that data for its own profit.
According to research done by Motherboard, the Edison Mail company sells products to finance, travel and e-commerce customers that is derived by scraping users' emails.
Edison's website explicitly states that data is collected from users, and it extensively details all the use that users' agree to by signing up to the service. At no point, however, does it say that it will sell this data.
It does refer repeatedly to service providers that it calls "partners."
"These service providers are authorized to use your information only as necessary to provide their services to us," it says.
Motherboard reports having obtained a document from the JP Morgan financial services company, which says that data is bought from Edison for the purpose of helping companies make investment decisions.
The document reportedly refers explicitly to Edison Mail as the source of data.
"[The data features] consumer purchase metric including brand loyalty, wallet share, purchase preferences etc," it says.
Notice the buttons under the To: heading. They're this user's most-often emailed correspondents
Edison has not responded to questions from Motherboard. However, after publication of that research, Edison has released an updated blog about its working practices.
"To keep our Edison Mail app free, and to protect your privacy by rejecting an advertising-based business model," it says, "our company Edison Software, measures e-commerce through a technology that automatically recognizes commercial emails and extracts anonymous purchase information from them. Our technology is designed to ignore personal and work email, which does not help us measure market trends."
"We do not participate in any ad targeting of our users and do not allow others to do ad targeting of our users," it continues.
The Motherboard research also reveals that email add-on services including Slice and Cleanfox sell data products to corporate clients based on user's emails. Cleanfox's parent company, Foxintelligence, did respond to Motherboard.
"From a higher perspective, we believe crowd-sourced transaction data has a transformational power both for consumers and for companies and that a marketplace where value can be created for both sides without making any compromise on privacy is possible," Florian Cleyet-Merle, Foxintelligence Chief Operating Officer said.
Updated: 13:10 ET with published comments from Edison.
Comments
The problem is most users don’t realize they are the product.
Bottom line, free ain’t free. If you have a “free” account somewhere, you are the product.
The AI article says: "Two years after it was revealed that Google allows third-party companies to read the emails in users' Gmail accounts, more apps have been found to be doing the same when used with any email account."
Not at all the same thing. The same thing would be Apple allowing a 3rd party app like Edison to read Apple Mail at the owners behest.
Oh wait....
In this case the story is about one of those 3rd party email services, Edison (and at least two others) actually selling user data collected from those emails to outside parties.
(UPDATE: Edison says it is all anonymized and uses only emails containing commercial transaction data. If accurate then it's another non-story being used as a "gotcha", this time by Motherboard)
Neither Google nor Apple harvest user data for sale to outside parties, nor machine reads or monetizes them for reasons beyond folder organizing or routing, spam/malicious attachments/Child porn or other necessities required by law or for protection of both the provider and user.
What I think is cutely worded is the header from the Edison mail website:
No Ads, Just Mail.
Sneaky....Thanks, but no thanks.
So Apple does or doesn't allow third parties to read users Apple Mails at the users request just exactly as Google does, and just what I said.? (IMO you won't answer) Changing the discussion won't make it any less true Rayz.
The story as written was factually incorrect re:Google. In hindsight, the story about Edison was far less of a story too IMO. Both benefit from some clarification.
Sidenote since you've misconstrued this before: Google was not fined for "circumventing user privacy settings" in the case of Safari. That would have been OK had they not told users they didn't need to do anything else to prevent tracking. That's what the fine was for. Google claims that advice about opting out was a simple mistake.
Ummm... Yeah.... Sure it was Google...
Now, if the app is free and gives you features you can't find elsewhere and you don't mind that your data is aggregated, then maybe something like Edison is okay for you. If that creeps you out, or if you deal with any sort of private records (FERPA or HIPAA, for instance), then you definitely should not use anything like this. I suggest looking around to see what works for you (and what doesn't), make sure it definitely does what it's saying it does, and be aware of the data exposed to it.
Our mission is to provide an independent and free email app that is NOT backed by an ad-based business model. There are two reasons why this mission is critical-- 1) consumers need to have a choice for a free email app and 2) users have a right to privacy. Our research-backed business model allows us to provide a privacy-focused and viable free email app that consumers want. Read more about this in our blog.
Exactly if you can't tell how the company converts you to being a customer. You aren't the customer.
I couldn't be bothered to research about an app's policies and that kind of stuff. That is my shortcoming. To circumvent that, I use the stock apps wherever possible.
Mail does have some pain points, but for the amount of time I use the app, I can put up with such small shortcomings.
My advice is that, unless you know what you are getting into, do not jump onto free 3rd party apps.
No Ads, Just Mail.
They should change it to
We read your Mail so there are No Ads.
Only way to ensure a email is secure is to use PGP or some other encryption right on the message (which is a PIA)
You have enough lying politicians and lawyers, people label them ALL as liars. You have enough lying developers and companies, people label them ALL as liars. It has taken a while, and still isn’t complete, but the fact that corporations cannot be trusted is slowly seeping into general cultural awareness.
I myself feel little more than contempt for the computer industry most of the time because ive worked inside it and been a customer of it for much of my life. I’ve been mistreated too many times (by even developers and companies with claims of high-minded ideals), while watching good products get ruined by mindless MBA management and Wall Street gambling and greed.
To find that data-mining is actually “codified” by capitalism as the next big thing, using customers’ / users’ content and activities as the biggest capitalist gold mine of all, and knowing that even an ethical company can be quickly made unethical just by being “publicly owned” just kills any ability I once had to trust anyone at all in this industry (or any other).
The economic system we have here is all about exploitation and advertising. From the communications tools, to the “news” programming. Top to bottom, it’s abuse and exploitation. We have an incredibly broken society.
The information you've posted here is welcome, but not digestible by the layperson - which is why you're seeing headlines and articles like this. I applaud your efforts to respond by seeking to educate and I hope you are successful.
That said, I'd rather everyone knew how to develop their own email client and could do so in a weekend. I know it's not something everyone would (want to) do, but it's always useful to be able to solve a problem yourself if you feel the need.