RapLeaf

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Rapleaf
Private company
Industry Database marketing
Founded March 2005
Headquarters Evanston, Illinois, USA
Key people
 Auren Hoffman
Number of employees
 11-50 (as of November 2, 2012)[1]
Parent TowerData
Website www.rapleaf.com

RapLeaf is a US-based marketing data and software company.

Company

RapLeaf was founded in San Francisco by Auren Hoffman and Manish Shah in March 2005.[2] In May 2006 the Founders Fund led a seed round of about $1 million, including angel investors such as Peter Thiel and Ron Conway.[3] In June 2007 a second round included Founders Fund, Rembrandt Venture Partners and included Conway.[3][4][5]

The company's first product was a meta-reputation system that allows users to create reviews and ratings of consumer transactions, which they then contribute to multiple e-commerce websites.[6] On January 26, 2007, Rapleaf released Upscoop, a service that allowed users to search for and manage their contacts by email address across multiple social networking sites.[7]

In 2012, Rapleaf began selling segmented data tied to email addresses for marketers to personalize email communications. Around September 2012 the company moved its headquarters from San Francisco to Chicago, and Phil Davis became chief executive, replacing Hoffman.[8]

Rapleaf was acquired by TowerData in 2013.[9]

Controversy and backlash

On May 15, 2006, eBay removed a number of auction listings where the seller had included links to Rapleaf, claiming they were in violation of its terms of use.[10]

In late August 2007, Upscoop began e-mailing entire contact lists that were provided by their users when they log in. This caused some criticism,[11] and the company later apologized for doing so.[12]

On July 10, 2008, Rapleaf changed its interface so that it no longer allows users to search people by email addresses.[13] Instead, the service only allows a registered user to view their own reputation and the websites (social and business networking) to which their own e-mail address is registered. There was an immediate negative backlash by companies and individuals[14] who had been using Rapleaf to both manage reputations and investigate the authenticity of people.

In October 2010, the Wall Street Journal reported that Rapleaf had transmitted personally identifiable information, including Facebook and MySpace IDs. Rapleaf said it had inadvertently transmitted that info and had ceased the practice.[15] On October 28, 2010, Facebook banned Rapleaf from scraping data on Facebook, and Rapleaf said it would delete the Facebook IDs it had collected.[16]

A 2011 report said the company could tell the food preferences of employees of major companies.[17]

Between 2007-2013, Rapleaf received significant backlash over the data collection practices and sale of individuals' personal information to advertisers. As a public spokesperson for the company, much of the criticism was directed at the CEO Auren Hoffman personally.[18][19][20][21][22] A 2010 investigation by The Wall Street Journal revealed that the company transmitted identifying details about individuals to at least 12 companies, violating the terms of service of Facebook and MySpace. A spokesperson at Facebook said it had "taken steps. . .to significantly limit Rapleaf's ability to use any Facebook-related data." [23][24][25] When confronted by The Wall Street Journal and CNet, it quietly revised its privacy policy both times.[26] CNNMoney described RapLeaf as "selling your identity," and TechCrunch characterized its method of identifiable data extraction of Google and Microsoft employees as "creepy." [27][28] RapLeaf later became known as LiveRamp, and is now known as TowerData after being acquired by Acxiom.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ http://gawker.com/297143/the-rap-on-rapleaf-the-trust-meter-you-cant-trust
  19. ↑ http://mashable.com/2010/11/03/behavior-tracking-privacy/
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ http://www.itworld.com/article/2832980/it-management/why-is-rapleaf-still-tracking-me-across-the-web-.html
  22. ↑ http://gawker.com/5672370/the-creepy-company-compiling-a-file-on-your-online-activityusing-your-real-name
  23. ↑ http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304410504575560243259416072
  24. ↑ http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304772804575558484075236968
  25. ↑ http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304248704575574653801361746
  26. ↑ http://www.cnet.com/news/people-search-engine-rapleaf-revises-privacy-policy
  27. ↑ http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/22/googlers-buy-more-junk-food-than-microsofties-and-why-rapleaf-is-creepy/
  28. ↑ http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/21/technology/rapleaf/
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