Email Apps selling data: Official response from Foxintelligence: In our recent article, we mentioned Motherboard's news revealing that some popular email apps for iOS and Android, which claim to be "focused on security," are extracting data from users' inboxes and selling it to make money.
According to Motherboard's report, among others, two major email apps were found to be collecting user data in questionable ways – CleanFox and Rakuten Slice.
CleanFox allows users to unsubscribe from unwanted newsletters with a single click. While Rakuten Slice identifies e-receipts from inboxes and extracts data from each purchase, which can be used by companies for marketing campaigns. In return, Rakuten Slice gives users a personalized online shopping experience.
Following communication between SecNews and Foxintelligence regarding the rumors circulating on the internet about its CleanFox application, we present to you the company's official response on the matter.
"For several days, our Cleanfox app has been the subject of unfounded accusations in the press, which have damaged our company's reputation. Not only are these accusations false and amount to defamation, but they are also contrary to our beliefs and commitments to privacy ."
Since the beginning of Foxintelligence, we have chosen to be even more demanding than what the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): We are always completely transparent in the business model of Cleanfox and Foxintelligence in general. Nothing is hidden in hard-to-read pages such as the Privacy Policy or Terms of Use. On the contrary, the business model is clearly indicated and simply when the user gives us their consent. We also commit to never reselling the personal data of our users, not participating in any advertising targeting device and not causing any harm to users. Foxintelligence creates and resells anonymous and aggregated statistics, like any research institute. We believe in a model in which the service is free and the user is not the product.
For these reasons, we strongly reject recent accusations that Cleanfox sells user data to third-party companies. This is false and defamatory. We also reject accusations that we are not transparent with our users. A simple visit to our website confirms this to you. Before the user connects to Cleanfox, we clearly explain our commitment to never sell personal data to third parties and only to the statistical market based on anonymous and aggregated data.
All of this is explained in an understandable and simple manner in the privacy policy, FAQs, and the Playstore and Apple Store.
Foxintelligence and Cleanfox have never sold and will never sell personal data to third parties. Clanefox is a free service. Foxintelligence sells statistics such as the estimated turnover of e-commerce platforms or the growth rate of online sales. To produce these statistics anonymously we collect order confirmation emails (e-receipts). These statistics are in no way user profiles, they do not allow any type of identification with a user of our application.
The cases of non-anonymous data sales mentioned in some articles are related to a practice that we always refuse to follow: data pseudonymization, i.e. assigning a unique identifier to each user. Therefore, it is impossible to identify the statistics with Foxintelligence users. We do not sell data that will be used for advertising targeting purposes. Like most online services or social media, Foxintelligence does not sell the personal data of its users. Foxintelligence’s business model is not linked to advertising. So, if you use Cleanfox, you will never have been the subject of targeted or non-targeted advertising from third-party companies due to your registration with Cleanfox.
