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"upstart" writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Remember Unrollme, the biz that helped you automatically ditch unwanted emails? Yeah, it was selling your data

If you were one of the millions of people that signed up with Unrollme to cut down on the emails from outfits you once bought a product from, we have some bad news for you: it has been storing and selling your data.

On Tuesday, America's Federal Trade Commission finalized a settlement [PDF] with the New York City company, noting that it had deceived netizens when it promised not to "touch" people's emails when they gave it permission to unsubscribe from, block, or otherwise get rid of marketing mailings they didn't want.

It did touch them. In fact, it grabbed copies of e-receipts sent to customers after they'd bought something - often including someone's name and physical address - and provided them to its parent company, Slice Technologies. Slice then used the information to compile reports that it sold to the very businesses people were trying to escape from.

[...] As the adage goes, if a product is free, you are the product. And so it was with Unrollme, which scooped up all that delicious data from people's emails, and provided it to Slice, which was then stored and compiled into market research analytics products that it sold.

Related:
Unroll.me, the Email Unsubscription Service, Has Been Collecting and Selling Your Data
Unroll.me Is Selling Your Information, Here's an Alternative

Original Submission