I think the key thing is not just the info - i.e. it may be reasonably easy to find out that a company is VC funded, or it may be a well known company like Goog

I think the key thing is not just the info - i.e. it may be reasonably easy to find out that a company is VC funded, or it may be a well known company like Google, or Facebook. The key I think is applying realistic expectations based on the raw information. Is it a small VC funded company with no apparent business model besides the ever present idea for VC's that "users === money"? Is it a Facebook clone of some other app, thats likely to be dropped once they realise they're skating to where the puck sank when the ice melted? Is it a Google app that's likely to be dropped in 12 months time when it doesn't provide a heap of useful profiling information instantly? Basically, the type of analysis any decent tech worker would do before recommending a new app for their parents.