Show HN: Unioncy – Keep an automated record of your things

It sounds like a great idea, but thieves might want to own the servers that store this data. On these servers will be a list of products and because of the receipts, very likely the physical address of where they were shipped to and how new they are.

Also, although https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/ does say the site supports 256bit AES, the unioncy server does not prefer it and under "handshake simulation" every current device will only negotiate a 128bit AES key.

Arguing about 256bit v.s 128bit AES on for TLS isn't really important though; the risks are all with the data-at-rest and stored on the unioncy servers.

In reading the privacy policy it appears that the product information will be used to provide selected and targeted advertising.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I take it that you have two main concerns in security and use of your data. Regarding security, I can't argue with the overall nature of the problem that you are pointing out. What I can say is that we take security very seriously and are being proactive about it by implementing measures such as SSL. To give some perspective, I think the service is very safe compared to many other online services that store personal data. We realise this is not enough for some and respect that, but we will keep improving.

Regarding your second concern about privacy. For the avoidance of doubt, the privacy policy says "We use your personal data, in anonymous form or by link to pseudonyms, when required, for the following purposes. In order to provide information and services required by you, such as customer service for example. To provide for an customised presentation of content, advertising and user experience. To provide news regarding the services of Unioncy and other administrative issues. In order to provide you with targeted marketing activities and advertising offers on The Unioncy website..."

This policy is vey much in line with Evernote and other leading personal data services. Similar to them we never want to compromise the user experience. Hope this helps!

Thanks for joining in. They're certainly in the same space. I think that we focus on different things and provide different value. Itembase and Slice are very similar in terms of feature set with a focus on online shopping. Also, their business model is to sell/exchange your data as shown http://intelligence.slice.com/ and http://partners.itembase.com/

Unioncy on the other hand is all about your products and your ownership experience. In practical terms, one big difference is our data. We have gathered information around your products like user manuals and warranty details and provide this information for you instead of you having to enter/upload it manually. It follows, that we think that our user is different from Itembase and Slice. There are more differences and many directions that this can go so definitely room for more than one player in our view.

Regarding Gmail, I've already mentioned several times in this thread that this is our first solution and more ways of adding products will come. Thanks!

I think there is huge potential to monetize in this space. I think the key is to maintain the integrity of our users. I don't want to give much detail in public to be honest. Happy to have a chat in person if you are really interested. If so, feel free to ping me @vfbod. Thanks!