Unroll.me discloses its freewheeling use of personal data in its privacy policy, which says
that “we may collect, use, transfer, sell and disclose nonpersonal information for any purpose” and that the data can be used “to build anonymous market research products and services.”
Yet few people read such policies closely, privacy advocates said.
Unroll.me, a free service to unsubscribe from email lists, can scour people’s inboxes for receipts from services like Lyft
and then sell the information to companies like Uber.
As long as a service like Unroll.me has a privacy policy, adheres to it
and does not sell personally identifiable information, like someone’s name, it is fairly free to package and sell the data it collects.
Slice Intelligence, a data firm that uses an email management program called Unroll.me to scan people’s inboxes for information, faced an outcry
that began on Sunday after reported that Uber had used Slice’s data to keep tabs on its ride-hailing rival Lyft.
Both Uber and Lyft pay for information from Slice as well as other data services, according to two people familiar with
the companies’ competitive intelligence programs, who asked to remain anonymous because the programs were confidential.
Katharina Kopp, director of policy at the Center for Digital Democracy, said of Unroll.me, “Under the disguise of being customer friendly
and helping their customers to get rid of ‘email junk,’ they allow the profiling and targeting of their unwitting customers by third parties.”
Ms. Kopp called the Unroll.me tactic a “particularly misleading practice,” despite the disclosure in its privacy policy.