Does Rapleaf scare you?
gigaom.com
Does Rapleaf scare you?
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: Does Rapleaf scare you?
#2I don’t think it should scare you if you are careful about your online activity
Re: Does Rapleaf scare you?
#3Very curious to hear what the HN community thinks.
Not sure if the analogy holds but it seems Rapleaf is turning one's email address into the new social security # (for those in the US)?
Also, does anyone know if banks can use this in making consumer credit decisions? I believe this wouldn't be legal, but Om alludes to banks using it in his post.
Re: Does Rapleaf scare you?
#4> “If a customer’s email address is attached to three or four social networking sites with 300 friends, the email likely isn’t fake and the retailer can put that person in the ‘good’ pile.”
The guy who sold sex.com had an interesting idea in his Mixergy interview about making loans to young adults by having them pledge their email or Facebook as collateral. For example, if the loan wasn't being repaid, the service would post on your wall using your credentials something like "isn't paying his loan back" Now, in some circles that might be taken as a positive status-enhancing comment but, privacy issues aside, the idea of putting up one's identity as collateral is interesting to me. Some of the more successful real world charities (Team in Training, for example) push you to raise thousands because you have pledged to do an endurance event (usually a marathon) and if you back out - you lose credibility and the more you raise for Team in Training - the more negative incentive to back out. You actually sign a legal contract when you sign up saying that you will either raise the full amount or pay the outstanding balance out of your own pocket - with a loophole that you can back out of the contract in thirty days and just lose your initial several hundred commitment fee. The power of social contracts. Rapleaf understands this well. So does Team in Training. At the extreme, there are cults. At the other end, stuff like being asked to donate money or volunteer at church. I wonder how well a public scorecard of how much money you were donating to charity, CO2 that you were generating would work to increase charitable donations and decrease personal CO2. But I digress
Re: Does Rapleaf scare you?
#5> “If a customer’s email address is attached to three or four social networking sites with 300 friends, the email likely isn’t fake and the retailer can put that person in the ‘good’ pile.” The guy who sold sex.com had an interesting idea in his Mixergy interview about making loans to young adults by having them pledge their email or Facebook as collateral. For example, if the loan wasn't being repaid, the service wo…
Identity as collateral is an interesting concept. In a way, it's happening now, albeit low-tech.
I get debt-collection calls for people loosely associated with me (in-laws). I assume the point is to have it come up in conversation and shame the debtors into paying, but I choose not to play a part.
Re: Does Rapleaf scare you?
#6Perhaps this is a good argument to split activities between email addresses. I guess many of us already have several perhaps personal, public, work, online account and so on. When you think of an email address as a reputation then its time to have a dozen or so on the go so that those reputations do not overlap.
Re: Does Rapleaf scare you?
#7I think the provision of powerful APIs (but with terms of use that say they can use any data that you gather with them) is a smart way of collecting a large amount of this type of information.
However, it's also not hugely clear (well, it wasn't when I was investigating using them a couple of years ago) when signing up to get access that that is what's happening. I was checking the TOU and noticed some alarming wording - basically, any users who used the Rapleaf API to upload their address book to my site, would also be giving their entire address book to Rapleaf (to do as they see fit).
In the end, I used Octazen (later acquired by Facebook) instead.
Re: Does Rapleaf scare you?
#8Email is very powerful and valuable data. I prefer to use the services of Flowtown, but just as Rapleaf indicated they are a data company and their tools are opt-in.
I have also found that investors tend to like startups that utilize Rapleafs data where applicable. We haven't decided to use it yet.
Re: Does Rapleaf scare you?
#9> “If a customer’s email address is attached to three or four social networking sites with 300 friends, the email likely isn’t fake and the retailer can put that person in the ‘good’ pile.” The guy who sold sex.com had an interesting idea in his Mixergy interview about making loans to young adults by having them pledge their email or Facebook as collateral. For example, if the loan wasn't being repaid, the service wo…
Social pressure is pretty much what micro-finance depends on to ensure repayment.
Re: Does Rapleaf scare you?
#10Rapleaf doesn't scare me -- their data is only what's publicly available on the web. If you don't want RapLeaf to have it, don't post it on the web.
I actually know their Chicago account manager and have meet one of the co-founders. They are a stand-up group and take privacy and data integrity quite seriously. My company uses their data to pull additional information on "influencers" we identify doing online research.