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Report: Mint Considers Selling Anonymized Data from Its Users
- byrneseyeview 17y agoThat's the problem with "Free": you might end up being the one who pays for it.
- mlinsey 17y agoI love mint and would much, much rather pay a monthly fee for it than have them sell information about me, even anonymized information.
- vaksel 17y agoA paid service would end up selling their data eventually too. Its too valuable stream of revenue to ignore.
- byrneseyeview 17y agoThe difference is that a paid service can survive without selling something. With a free service that isn't offered by a charity, they need to generate revenue at some point. You just have to figure out what they're going to sell. My guess is that Mint won't really do this. But it's an important risk; I'd feel way better about them having my data if someone out there was paying $5/month to use Mint.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- Derferman 17y agoI just canceled my account. I am afraid that even though they anonymize the data, personal details may still be present. When AOL accidentally released their "anonymized" search data, the same thing happened. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_data_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_data_scandal
- physcab 17y agoYah I'm a bit nervous. But doesn't a third party company handle all the identifiable details anyways? I don't really give a hoot if other people know how much I spend on Zipcar or groceries.
- pj 17y agoDo they delete your data when you cancel your account?
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- randomwalker 17y agoMy tutorial on de-anonymizing data published by Lendingclub might be useful: http://33bits.org/2008/11/12/57/ http://33bits.org/2008/11/12/57/
- randallsquared 17y agoWe regularly hear about the successful de-anonymization of anonymized data (netflix, etc), so this doesn't fill me with confidence about using Mint. Other than posting a bond (which a startup probably won't have the money to do), is there a way to robustly signal that this kind of thing won't be done by your startup?
- aristus 17y agoThe founders could put up their stock as a guarantee against it. (edit) That's risky an self-limiting, on second thought. The investors would never agree to the same, and it would not apply in the case of a sale of the company.
- randallsquared 17y agoInvestors might agree to it, if it was plausible that it increased the value of the shares. And such a lien is common on other kinds of property, so I don't know that there's anything different about this in principle. I kinda like the idea.
- mshafrir 17y agoAlthough it doesn't look as good as Mint, I much prefer Yodlee to Mint.com
- Femur 17y agoI use both Yodlee and Mint, but i much prefer the UI of mint. May I ask why do you prefer Yodlee? Also, note that Mint uses Yodlee in the back end.
- frossie 17y agoHas nobody tried Wesabe? They seem to be very much up front about what kind of information they aggregate and for what. Also, they don't take payments to recommend particular services. I like them, but don't use this kind of website extensively because my local bank operates in the middle ages.
- ensignavenger 17y agoI've used Wesabe, and yes, I like the service. It is more of a community built around financial management than just a financial management tool.
- projectileboy 17y agoDepending on what you want out of the app, you might also consider Buxfer. My wife and I love it. $21/yr well spent. I even like it better than Quicken or Money.
- staunch 17y agoAhh. Reminded me to cancel my account. Thanks! Mostly just because I don't use it...it's interesting, but not really very useful to me. I already know I spend too much on food!
- rictic 17y agoData point: I use mint.com. This morning I awoke to three text messages, all telling me in one spammy way or another that I could get a "cash advance". All three messages were from different numbers, and one of them was from a number that has only ever sent me my Mint.com alerts.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- smannmint 17y agoStephen here at Mint.com. Mint does not send those types of alerts. We do use a third party to deliver our text alerts via all the carriers. I'd really like to learn more about these text messages about a "cash advance" so please email me at smann at mint dot com so I can research. Thank you.
- dhimes 17y agoI'm sorry, but this should come as absolutely no surprise. When you give information about yourself to companies, the temptation is going to be very great to figure out how to monetize it. Anybody here should certainly know that going in.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- pj 17y agoThis is wrong. wrong, wrong, wrong... If I were running mint, I'd shut it down before voilating my users' privacy like this. I'd rather return to the machine than do this. It's why I don't want venture capital. What mint is doing makes me feel dirty. Thank goodness I never created a mint.com account.
- tvon 17y agoDon't banks and credit institutions already do this?