More email apps caught 'processing' and selling user data [u]

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited February 2020
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)
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
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.
cornchip
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 21
    The developers response is you can opt-out, control what data is collected, and delete stored data.

    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.
    flyingdpGG1mld53adysamoriawatto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 21
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,153member

    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....  :)
    edited February 2020
  • Reply 3 of 21

    To keep our Edison Mail app free, and to protect your privacy by rejecting an advertising-based business model, 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.


    Edison puts privacy first in everything we do as a company and that includes making our users aware of how we use their data in our products. You have complete control over how your information is used and we allow you to opt-out of data sharing in our research product, without impacting your app experience. We strive to be as transparent as possible about our business practices in our press communications, Edison Mail website, Edison Trends website, privacy policy, blog posts, on our app store pages, on social media, and of course, in our app itself. We do not participate in any ad targeting of our users and do not allow others to do ad targeting of our users. 


    Caption: All Edison Mail users must decide whether they accept or decline our policies before they can use the app. Screenshot shows Edison Mail’s initial setup presented to each new app user that downloads the app.


    We intentionally keep our consumer and business products under a single brand to ensure that our consumer users are familiar with our business model. 


    Caption: Our continued transparency is showcased in our public tweets. Here is a tweet dialogue from our customer service team in 2018.


    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.We discuss this  further in our blog


    We launched our Edison Trends e-commerce research product that provides insights about shopping trends from aggregated and anonymized transaction data extracted with permission from our Edison Mail app users. Research from Edison Trends is often used by the nation’s leading press reporting on retail trends-- including outlets like The Wall Street Journal, PCMag, Bloomberg, and more. Our Edison Trends research has been cited in more than 1,500 press articles in the past three years. Anyone-- including users of Edison Mail-- can read about Edison Trends research in the news almost daily. You can see examples of the research we create from the data we collect on our research page and in the following chart.


    Caption: Sample chart from Edison Trends research report about 2018 Nike Labor Day online sales following Colin Kaepernick ad campaign. Read the report here.


    The use of anonymized data for research to facilitate learning is a wide practice used by many types of organizations - from the U.S. Census, the Center for Disease Control (CDC), banks, credit card companies and more. Edison Mail users have the option, at any time, to opt-out of data sharing for Edison Trends research or delete any data we collect with no impact to their app experience. 


    In 2018, our email app and business model was mentioned in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in an article referencing how our app allows users to opt-out of data sharing in our research at will. 


    Stay Informed 

    Our team at Edison also hopes that press and consumers alike will take the time to learn more about companies like us to better understand how data is being used, and which players are truly worth that wariness vs those that are working hard to offer great products in a transparent manner, without infringing on their own user’s privacy.


    As an email app, we hope all of our users understand the access they allow when they connect us to their accounts in order for us to keep the app free, independant and ad-free. We use that access to provide our services and build new AI-enabled email features. We communicate that clearly, our users always had to give us permission, and have the ability to opt-out of data sharing for research at any time. 


    We continue to put privacy first at Edison Software - we do not target our users for ads and we actively prevent other companies from tracking them in our app. We want to point you to our overview of all the privacy standards we have in place at Edison. 


    We thank and appreciate all our Edison Mail users, and we strive everyday to create the best independent email app, without sacrificing your privacy.


    gatorguy
  • Reply 4 of 21
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    gatorguy said:

    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.

    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....  :)
    You keep trying to dump Google and Apple in the same toilet bowl, but the fact is only Google deliberately circumvented user privacy settings and got fined for it. 

    It’s not what they say, it’s what they do. And you spending hours trying to cover for them doesn’t make it any better. 
    mwhiteGG1leavingthebiggStrangeDaysdysamoriawatto_cobraspock1234
  • Reply 5 of 21
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member

    Feedback said:

    To keep our Edison Mail app free, and to protect your privacy by rejecting an advertising-based business model, 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.


    Edison puts privacy first in everything we do as a company and that includes making our users aware of how we use their data in our products. You have complete control over how your information is used and we allow you to opt-out of data sharing in our research product, without impacting your app experience. We strive to be as transparent as possible about our business practices in our press communications, Edison Mail website, Edison Trends website, privacy policy, blog posts, on our app store pages, on social media, and of course, in our app itself. We do not participate in any ad targeting of our users and do not allow others to do ad targeting of our users. 


    Caption: All Edison Mail users must decide whether they accept or decline our policies before they can use the app. Screenshot shows Edison Mail’s initial setup presented to each new app user that downloads the app.


    We intentionally keep our consumer and business products under a single brand to ensure that our consumer users are familiar with our business model. 


    Caption: Our continued transparency is showcased in our public tweets. Here is a tweet dialogue from our customer service team in 2018.


    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.We discuss this  further in our blog


    We launched our Edison Trends e-commerce research product that provides insights about shopping trends from aggregated and anonymized transaction data extracted with permission from our Edison Mail app users. Research from Edison Trends is often used by the nation’s leading press reporting on retail trends-- including outlets like The Wall Street Journal, PCMag, Bloomberg, and more. Our Edison Trends research has been cited in more than 1,500 press articles in the past three years. Anyone-- including users of Edison Mail-- can read about Edison Trends research in the news almost daily. You can see examples of the research we create from the data we collect on our research page and in the following chart.


    Caption: Sample chart from Edison Trends research report about 2018 Nike Labor Day online sales following Colin Kaepernick ad campaign. Read the report here.


    The use of anonymized data for research to facilitate learning is a wide practice used by many types of organizations - from the U.S. Census, the Center for Disease Control (CDC), banks, credit card companies and more. Edison Mail users have the option, at any time, to opt-out of data sharing for Edison Trends research or delete any data we collect with no impact to their app experience. 


    In 2018, our email app and business model was mentioned in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in an article referencing how our app allows users to opt-out of data sharing in our research at will. 


    Stay Informed 

    Our team at Edison also hopes that press and consumers alike will take the time to learn more about companies like us to better understand how data is being used, and which players are truly worth that wariness vs those that are working hard to offer great products in a transparent manner, without infringing on their own user’s privacy.


    As an email app, we hope all of our users understand the access they allow when they connect us to their accounts in order for us to keep the app free, independant and ad-free. We use that access to provide our services and build new AI-enabled email features. We communicate that clearly, our users always had to give us permission, and have the ability to opt-out of data sharing for research at any time. 


    We continue to put privacy first at Edison Software - we do not target our users for ads and we actively prevent other companies from tracking them in our app. We want to point you to our overview of all the privacy standards we have in place at Edison. 


    We thank and appreciate all our Edison Mail users, and we strive everyday to create the best independent email app, without sacrificing your privacy.


    Thanks, but no thanks. 
    edited February 2020 StrangeDaysdysamoriawatto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 21
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,153member
    Rayz2016 said:
    gatorguy said:

    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.

    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....  :)
    You keep trying to dump Google and Apple in the same toilet bowl, but the fact is only Google deliberately circumvented user privacy settings and got fined for it. 

    It’s not what they say, it’s what they do. And you spending hours trying to cover for them doesn’t make it any better. 
    Oh, a "Wadabout" having zippity to do with the story or even email. Who'da guessed it would come from you? 

    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... ;) Definitely not one of their brighter moments.
    edited February 2020
  • Reply 7 of 21
    Why I stick with Mail.app, despite it's numerous pain points.
    DancingMonkeysdysamoriawatto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 21
    Anything that has my mail filtering through its servers has caused me to read up on it closely. I have options—Mail (of course), Outlook (I'm an Office 365 user), and I could POP/IMAP into a service like Gmail—but I wanted a client that would let me use a lot of accounts and allow me to sign and encrypt my email. I researched the options and, looking for something that connects directly and doesn't play these semantic games, and I ended up settling on Canary. It's not free, it doesn't do any of these smart filtering sort of things, and it has its quirks (they're actively addressing the bugs, though, which is nice), but after Airmail really pulled a bait-and-switch last year, Canary is definitely well worth the look.

    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.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 21

    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

    gatorguy
  • Reply 10 of 21
    No. Free. Lunch. 
    dysamoriawatto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 21
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    heli0s said:
    Why I stick with Mail.app, despite it's numerous pain points.
    I stick with Mail.app precisely because it has NO "pain points" for me at all. It just works and is secure.
    watto_cobraspock1234
  • Reply 12 of 21
    DAalsethDAalseth Posts: 2,783member
    gatorguy said:

    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....  :)
     (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)”
    Except as numerous studies have shown in the last few years, “anonymized” data is not really anonymous. Someone good with databases and data mining can put together patterns and figure out with a surprising amount of accuracy, to whom the data belongs. No this is not “another non story”. This is a big deal. 
    StrangeDaysGG1montrosemacsdysamoriawatto_cobraspock1234
  • Reply 13 of 21
    LeoMCLeoMC Posts: 102member
    Bye-bye! This app is never going to be on my phone; never ever ever again.
    svanstromwatto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 21
    mattinozmattinoz Posts: 2,289member
    The developers response is you can opt-out, control what data is collected, and delete stored data.

    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.

    Exactly if you can't tell how the company converts you to being a customer. You aren't the customer.
    svanstromdysamoriawatto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 21
    hexclockhexclock Posts: 1,240member
    I think it's getting the point where a mistrust of all developers is going to manifest, unfairly or not. When updated my old metronome app and it wanted me to make an account to use it, I just deleted it. 
    dysamoriawatto_cobra
  • Reply 16 of 21

    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.

    svanstromwatto_cobraspock1234
  • Reply 17 of 21
    peteopeteo Posts: 402member
    So an honest header wouldn't be

    No Ads, Just Mail.


    They should change it to

    We read your Mail so there are No Ads.

    watto_cobra
  • Reply 18 of 21
    peteopeteo Posts: 402member
    lkrupp said:
    heli0s said:
    Why I stick with Mail.app, despite it's numerous pain points.
    I stick with Mail.app precisely because it has NO "pain points" for me at all. It just works and is secure.
    Just to let you know EMAIL IS NOT SECURE. In a lot of cases its is not encrypted. When it goes over the internet to one mail server to another mail server there is a chance its in clear text (though there are many servers setup now that do use transport encryption (TLS). Also when it stores on that server it will most likely not be encrypted. (gmail does encrypt its stored email, but when it sends an email to another server that server might not use transport security (even if they use TLS a lot of them have self signed certs, or other issues they make them a weak link) and most likely not encrypt the stored email.

    Only way to ensure a email is secure is to use PGP or some other encryption right on the message (which is a PIA)
    FileMakerFeller
  • Reply 19 of 21
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    hexclock said:
    I think it's getting the point where a mistrust of all developers is going to manifest, unfairly or not. When updated my old metronome app and it wanted me to make an account to use it, I just deleted it. 
    This is the inevitability, yes. People are slowly catching on, but their options have been taken away at the same time. Financial hardship makes “free” seem worth the risk even when they know the basic facts. It will continue, minus the default trust. Who trusts corporations anymore? The few people who’ve never had a single difficulty controlling their experiences as yet in their lives...?

    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.
    FileMakerFellerspock1234
  • Reply 20 of 21
    Feedback said:

    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

    Nobody's complaining about your mission. They're complaining about their perception of your implementation.

    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.
    watto_cobra
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