RapLeaf Is Back and Bad As Ever

itwbennett writes "Privacy blogger Dan Tynan opted out of data aggregator RapLeaf back in 2010 — and wrote about it. At the time, opting out seemed to work well enough. But fast forward a couple of years and ... they're baaaack. While testing a privacy service called Safe Shepherd, Tynan discovered that 'not only [is he] not opted out of RapLeaf's database, they've also gathered far more information about [him] than they had before.' And it's a pretty good bet some of the data came from Facebook apps, which is a practice that the company was slapped for in 2010 and claimed to no longer do."

Follow the money

[Jawnn]

This behavior not going away until it becomes to expensive, in terms of bad PR as well as fines, for dishonest practices. You either honor your customers' request/expectation of privacy or you don't. If you don't it should cost you. Currently it simply doesn't, so the so-called free market being what it is, we see rampant abuse like this. Mind you, the clueless legions who so blithely bend over to have their privacy raped by Facebook et al deserve a fair share of the blame here, but it is not realistic to expect most of them to fully understand just how bad an idea it is to let some of these go on. For that reason, regulation is in order, and I mean real regulation, with teeth and a budget to enforce it. I will not hold my breath.

Hmmm ...

[gstoddart]

So, you don't trust the company (which is a given), but somehow we're supposed to trust that opting-out actually does anything or causes them to delete anything?

If anything, it sounds like the fact that you opted out gave them more information about you and more reason to find more.

Opting out of this kind of shit is like "click here to unsubscribe" which comes with spam to make it look compliant -- they're not going to do it.

I mean, he's talking about logging into his account on their server to see what information they have about him -- I sure wouldn't sign up for this in the first place.

Laws need to change so the default position isn't "company can do whatever it wants without telling you". Of course, they'd scream and howl that it was cutting into their "freedom of speech" or corporate profits, but I don't see why it should be something which they decide how it gets used.