Rapleaf

[faustus]

"It is more profitable to be ethical." - Rapleaf mission statement

If you have received an email from Rapleaf - beware. And the chances are if you are on Facebook, you have. A lot of people not on Facebook have, too.

They harvest email addresses and through some wizardry then track down lots of real world information about you - your name, age, location, job, membership of Bebo, Facebook, Myspace, etc. This information is then publicly available at www.rapleaf.com.

They knew my name, age, occupation and current town. Earlier today I logged onto the site to try to delete the information. I'm not convinced it went.

Of course, you may feel your life is an open book anyway, and not worry. From reading about the company, it seems that such information can be bought and sold. Think junk mail.

One chap sprang to defend their policy at http://carlo.zottmann.org/2007/08/21/dear-rapleaf-guys-there-is-no-good-spam/ - a chap called Dan. He said, "Thanks for the writeup on Rapleaf and lettings us know your thoughts. We’re a startup and we’re quickly learning what works and what doesn’t for everyone. Feedback from users like you is at the core of our learning. We greatly apologize for any inconvenience, and if we can be of any assistance or if you have other feedback, please don’t hesitate to email us anytime."

Dan is on Rapleaf - http://www.rapleaf.com/pub/Dan-Scudder - with a positive write up, although curiously Tom is his only friend on Myspace (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=50218664).

I emailed Dan - rather than opt-out@rapleaf.com and privacy@rapleaf.com - and asked to be removed. Ten minutes later, he politely replied, and I'm toast on Rapleaf. It says: "Information for this person has been selected to be removed."

I'm a trusting soul, and I hope it's gone from their database, and just because it isn't publicly visible, I'm sure they don't have it on file, yanno, in case.

Edit:

An email in response to opt-out@rapleaf.com:

Your information was removed from the Rapleaf site and will only be kept for aggregate purposes only. If you would like your information completely removed from Rapleaf databases, please print out the attached customized opt-out forms, fill it out, and mail it to the following postal address:

Rapleaf
Attn: Opt-Out Request
657 Mission Street, Suite 600
San Francisco, CA 94105

NOTE: The attached forms are in PDF format. In order to print out the
forms, you may need to download Adobe Reader if you do not already have it installed on your computer:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Rapleaf will then quickly follow up with a confirmation email once the
opt-out forms are received. All relevant information pertaining to this
opted-out email address will also be removed once the opt-out forms are
received.

Best,

Vivek Sodera
Rapleaf

Incidentally, he has
The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
by Guy Kawasaki (Author)
Long Tail, The: WHY THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS IS SELLING LESS OF MORE
by Chris Anderson (Author)
Juicing the Orange: How to Turn Creativity into a Powerful Business Advantage
24 - Season Four
24 - Season Two
24 - Season Three
The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

On his Amazon wishlist if anyone feels generous.

Given his address, I think the addresses of
Justin Camerer
Sean Carr
Bryan Duxbury
Dayo Esho
Cristina Hernandez
Auren Hoffman
Chris Kline
Jeremy Lizt
Dan Scudder
Manish Shah
Vivek Sodera
Kyle Wilson

i.e. the RapLeaf team, should be obvious. If you look at Flickr, you often find that they have no contacts and no friends (aaah...).

You may wish to type in http://www.rapleaf.com/pub/firstname-surname to check if you are on. Lamentables and Abrinsky are visible this way - I know where they live but Lamentables is clearly antisocial - and a Melbourne based writer has a Flickr account and MySpace page.

This has turned me into a stalker...

Comments

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

An email to Dan Scudder worked (or seems to have) for me too.

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

It might not be the end of the matter - I had a reply to my opt-out@crapelea email as follows:

Your information was removed from the Rapleaf site and will only be kept for
aggregate purposes only. If you would like your information completely
removed from Rapleaf databases, please print out the attached customized
opt-out forms, fill it out, and mail it to the following postal address:

Rapleaf
Attn: Opt-Out Request
657 Mission Street, Suite 600
San Francisco, CA 94105

NOTE: The attached forms are in PDF format. In order to print out the
forms, you may need to download Adobe Reader if you do not already have it
installed on your computer:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

Rapleaf will then quickly follow up with a confirmation email once the
opt-out forms are received. All relevant information pertaining to this
opted-out email address will also be removed once the opt-out forms are
received.

Best,

Vivek Sodera
Rapleaf


Obviously his email would be Vivek@etc. I've asked him what "aggregate" means and demanded that he remove everything, without any posting of PDFs.
Silence so far.

Ethics is north of the Thames Estuary, right?

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

Ethics is where I *live*, mate.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

And if you search on your email address and it isn't in their database, they immediately promise to dig up information... ugh.

Oh the whole, am more creeped out by this than miffed that, given my website is usually at the top of Google searches on my name, there was nothing at all about me in their files.