Introducing Sunshine
sunshine.comThree clicks to get to the actual "privacy policy", i'll save you the time and tell you what they collect:
You - name, phone number, work email, mailing address, birthday, "other personal info", data about you from data brokers
Your devices - IP, browser, OS, mobile carrier, device info, cookies, any data collected by third party SDKs they use
Location - yours, what other users are near you
Friends - contacts on your device, info from your friends they submit as a result of emails the company sends on your behalf, contacts from direct access to your Google accounts
Gmail - your email
Edit to add: You must create an account to view or request deletion of your data under CCPA
Seriously, the fact it's become this easy to collect data leads me to wonder if I should just start an app called "give me your contacts list.com". You give me your data, you get nothing in return, thanks very much.
Besides, I'm still bewildered it's legal to even collect contact data without that contact consenting to the exchange of that information.
If I give $person my $number, I do NOT consent to 50 $people getting that data (Google et al). I no longer even have a reachable phone number since it's not worth the privacy trade offs as that data is no longer under my control. At least emails afford a bit better control.
We need to majorly rethink how data is exchanged between user and service, and if a smartphone has APIs to access contact information, they're smart enough to let me know which person uploaded my PII (so I can cuss at them!).
> How do you make the mundane magical? Imagine if your contacts magically stayed up-to-date with no effort on your part.
is this a joke? how can that possibly be the intro sentence for anything? even an actual product, much less a pre-product manifesto, or whatever this is.
honestly, magically syncing contacts sounds sounds pretty sweet. it is a problem i have. i don't know that it is mundane, nor that it's solution must be magical; but maybe that is what it necessitates. but what a half-assed way to try exude apple-ness, or whatever you would call that. it reads like a child's description of the super awesome pillow fort they're gonna build this weekend.
> When your contacts are organized and truly work, they create a flywheel where scheduling, planning, organizing, and being thoughtful about your relationships becomes infinitely easier.
wow, what an evocative analogy. a flywheel! "infinitely easier"? wow! (you get my point.)
seriously, i hate to be so harsh, but it's at least 50% because i'm jealous of the idea of writing a manifesto as a company / product announcement, and i strongly feel like the effect would have been way stronger with just a little heavier editor's pen.
It's not much more than an extension of everything being 'awesome' and 'amazing' etc. when it's merely useful, if that. A trend that I regret is starting to invade the UK.
[...] Or if the great photos you have of your friends got sent to them automatically.
I know that's just an example but I'd literally never want this to happen and the fact that this is a cherry-picked feature used as promotion is worrying to me.
I also had this exact thought.
I clicked on "Careers". Marissa Mayer is holding a pillow that says "Be Nice Or Leave". Ironic given all the stories that came out of her time at Yahoo. The one that really stands out given current circumstances was when she forced everyone to work at the office, then built a nursery at work (presumably with company money) so she could have her baby next to her all day.
"we value diversity in the classic sense as well as a diversity of opinions, values, and ideas."
"Above all, everyone on our team is smart, loves to learn, and is NICE. Because life is too short to spend time working with people who aren’t nice."
It's possible that the reports coming out of Yahoo were made up, but I don't think it's much of a stretch to say her reputation makes it tough to hire good employees. I can't find it now, but I recall a NY Times story about how miserable it was to work for her.
Edit: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/11/technology/yahoos-brain-d...
"...the common criticism that she was tightfisted with praise and sometimes displayed a harshness that could be demoralizing."
"Last March, Ms. Mayer told the staff at an all-hands meeting that the bloodletting was finally over. Shortly thereafter, she changed her mind and demanded more cuts. All told, about 1,100 people lost their jobs in the layoffs."
"Give us all of your contacts" is not the way I'd start a conversation with a customer.
I really hate to sound negative but all a former VP (or was it SVP?) at Google and an ex-CEO of Yahoo could come up for a startup idea is a new and improved contacts app.
That comment can pretty much be applied to any successful startup in the early days.
Fair enough and perhaps in a few years my above comment would reach the same infamous status as the ones made on HN when Dropbox had launched. I wish the founders all the luck, I truly do.
Having said that, my comment was not at all about trivializing the idea or its future potential. A contact list can very well be the trojan horse to launch a new social network/IM platform.
My comment was more about that such founders have deep connections from the point of view of both access as well as availability of resources, have broad and deep insights due to their past experience and are obviously experienced and smart, and as such I would have liked them to tackle harder problems. That is all.
I note a plethora of mundane products from all the bigs players. Doing popular things better should always be a viable plan, IMO.
reminds me of the famous Dropbox comment
I can't remember the name, but I'm sure that on the early 2000s I had an app on my Windows mobile device that interfaced with a website that did just this. At the time I did it without thinking about it twice. Now I would not give them my contact data even if they paid me. Google already has it, Facebook and Linkedin already have it - and unfortunately I have no way of getting them to realistically remove that information, but for sure I don't want yet another corporation to get all that info.
Looks like Marissa Meyer read my comment from almost exactly 8 years ago on HN [0]. However, nothing about this abomination inspires any trust and there is simply no way I would install this.
Discussion from yesterday with an article that actually has some screenshots, etc. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25136898
just a manifesto no product? some soft launch this is, whatever product(s) lies at the end of the tunnel seems bogus but it's a nicely worded pitch
Ok so now I'm introduced to "Sunshine," and I still have absolutely no fucking idea what that is.
Great "introduction."
Yet another data mining front parading as an application, the exact same problem the entire internet is in heated discussion about how to solve. "We will never sell your data" sounds very "don't be evil" and the terms and conditions would no doubt have a clause that they can be updated without notice. Tl;dr: The timing couldn't be worse to launch a product like this.
(edit: I just checked the privacy policy and at the bottom of the list of "how we use your data" they state this as one of the uses - "for any other purpose for which the information was collected." which could be literally anything)
The fun part is if anyone I know ends up using this and tracks me as a contact in their application, then I have no say in my personal information and relationships being slurped up from their end.
Like this, I do not.
Yet it's only on iPhone... Such wow
iPhone only... Wow.