Evernote Reverses Course On Opt-out Privacy Policy That Would've Exposed Users' Content To Employees (venturebeat.com)

Evernote has withdrawn planned changes to its privacy policy that would have permitted some employees to view the content of users' note, as the company works on new features that rely on machine-learning technology. From a report on VentureBeat: The company caused an uproar earlier this week when news emerged of the pending changes, which were due to take effect on January 23. Even if users were to opt out of allowing their information to be viewed by employees, the planned changes drew attention to the company's existing policy that permitted employees to look at users' content "for other reasons stated in our Privacy Policy," which included quite a few vague reasons, including "to maintain and improve the service." Evernote CEO Chris O'Neill issued an apology of sorts yesterday for the company's "poor communication" around the policy, and pointed out that users' information would be anonymized. But today the company has gone one step further by announcing that it's no longer implementing the planned changes in their current form .

Comments

A little late.

[Blinkin1200]

I already deleted my account and uninstalled the apps.

Re:A little late.

[tripleevenfall]

Ditto... once a company tries this, you can be sure they'll be back for mineable data sooner rather than later, with or without asking in a way that becomes public knowledge.

I wish they would stop

[Eponymous Coward]

I like Evernote a lot. It's worked very well for me and the few problems I've had over the years were resolved relatively quickly by support.

That said, I think the software was finished a while ago. I wish they would stop adding new features, make the company way, way smaller, and just polish and refine the core product. Everything that isn't the core product should be moved to an extension. Lower the development and support costs enough that the company can be profitable by charging users $1 or $2 per month.