

Is CoFoundersLab selling user data? - pain_perdu

I was spammed yesterday by a company named bosiDNA who sell business coaching services.<p>I contacted BosiDNA and requested my opt-in records (IP/timestamp) and in their reply they indicated they obtained my address from cofounderslab.  Now this is quite bothersome because on the cofounderslab sign-up page it explicitly states the following:<p>"We promise not to share your email with anyone else."<p>The scam seems to work like this.  At some point a few weeks ago I received a private message/e-mail on cofounders lab with the subject "You received a request from ___ on CoFoundersLab"<p>And inside the email it stated "___ wants to know what type of entrepreneur you are! They've requested that you take the entrepreneurial archetype assessment. It's only 10 questions and it's free! Here's what to do:<p>Sign in to your CoFoundersLab account
Click "My Profile" (under your name in the top right)
Click the "Take Assessment" button on your profile (on the right side of your profile)<p>I followed the link just to see what it was about but decided not to complete this assessment.  More importantly, I never opted-in to being added to anyone's mailing list nor did I ever give permission for CoFoundersLab to share my contact info with a third-party.<p>This seems like a pretty shady business practice to me, has anyone else been getting spam that can be traced back to CoFoundersLab?
======
skaviani
Shahab here, co-founder at CoFoundersLab. I'd like to respond to the
allegations being made on this string.

Regarding Orangethirty's statement, I don't know how you could claim that we
sold any data. We absolutely do not sell any data. You should be more careful
with your claims online, like many other startups we work really hard to do
things by the book and build a strong reputation. Unless you have facts to
back your claims up these sort of actions are very damaging to startup brands
in their young lives.

Regarding Intellegacy's statement, CoFoundersLab does not have a call center,
furthermore we don't even collect your phone number. Unless you are a Pro
Member, at which point we collect a phone number for the credit card
transaction. We do not use phone numbers for any other purpose. If you are not
a Pro Member please mention that on this string, as it would be pretty cut-
and-dry that we had nothing to do with the phone call you received since we
don't have your phone number.

Regarding pain_perdu's allegations that we're doing anything wrong, I'd like
to start with the following. You received a legitimate request from another
member on CoFoundersLab to take an assessment. This member was presumably
considering you as a co-founder and wanted to see how you matched up from a
personality type assessment/entrepreneur archetype is what we refer that as.
You then started the assessment but did not complete the assessment. At this
point we did store your email on the BosiDNA system.

BOSIdna is a partner of CoFoundersLab. When you sign up for CoFoundersLab's
FREE SERVICE you agreed to the following terms IF you take the assessment; "By
completing the archetype assessment, you agree to the Terms of Service of BOSI
Inc. Find BOSI Inc.'s Terms of Service here: <http://www.bosidna.com/tos>. We
rely on bosiDNA to conduct the assessment so you're also agreeing to their
terms of use. So CoFoundersLab did not sell any information to bosiDNA, we
have purchased a license from bosiDNA, we feel this is a valuable service and
we provide it as an integrated experience for our members at no charge.
bosiDNA has never paid CoFoundersLab for any service, and certainly not for
our data. Therefore CoFoundersLab has not done anything wrong.

Having said all that, while bosiDNA reserves the right to email you; we do
have an agreement that our members should not be contacted by bosiDNA directly
without permission. There was a campaign that was sent out to a very small
group of people inadvertently who were also CoFoundersLab members. I've
confirmed with their CEO that issue has been resolved. This was an isolated
case and will not happen again.

For those reading this, I want to further explain the email that was sent from
bosiDNA was an invitation to join a free webinar. It went out to people who
partially completed the bosi assessment to educate people about a free
assessment.

It's a real slap in the face that CoFoundersLab provides a free service, made
more than 25k introductions, all to help entrepreneurs launch new startups,
and to be treated with such disdain is a real disappointment. I'd like to
refer anyone reading this to
<http://buzz.cofounderslab.com/Successful_Matches/> to have a look at some of
the successul entrepreneurs we're helping and assure you, we do not sell data
to anybody, and that our mission and values are just, and we hope to make a
huge impact on the entrepreneurs who are seeking great co-founders.

\- Shahab

~~~
pain_perdu
Hi Shahab, thanks for replying to my concerns.

My intention was not to "slap you in the face"...but I REALLY don't like spam
(unsolicited e-mail for which I have not opted-in). I don't feel that the fact
your service is free gives you a license to share e-mail addresses without
permission. As I pointed out in my original post, the statement "We promise
not to share your email with anyone else." is extremely explicit.

Now where I have a problem with your explanation of this incident is the
following statement:

"When you sign up for CoFoundersLab's FREE SERVICE you agreed to the following
terms IF you take the assessment; "By completing the archetype assessment, you
agree to the Terms of Service of BOSI Inc. Find BOSI Inc.'s Terms of Service
here: <http://www.bosidna.com/tos.>

I just tried going through the same process from a new dummy account and when
I clicked "My Archetype You have not yet taken this assessment - Take
Assessment" it then takes me to a link still on your site that says

"What's your entrepreneurial archetype? Take a minute to complete this
10-question assessment to discover your innate entrepreneurial skill set and
how you might match up with a potential co-founder."

Upon clicking that link, the BOSI system pops up and that is as far as I ever
went on my accounts. There was no indication that my initiating this process I
would be having any interaction with a third-party, let-alone being displayed
a warning like the one you described. The phrasing you quoted was not
displayed to me (I just tested it now) at any point.

This is just not email best-practices.

This is spam.

When good websites (and I wholeheartedly agree you provide a great service to
the community) start leaking their e-mail lists to third-parties without the
permission of the users, this is where a lot of spam comes from.

------
skaviani
Shahab here again. I hope this issue has been covered to everyone's
satisfaction. I just want to leave any new readers with this link to our terms
of use one more time. <http://www.cofounderslab.com/terms-of-use>

As you see we explicitly mention bosiDNA (this is the only partner in the
whole agreement) and that you're agreeing to their terms of use too. If any
member of HN or CoFoundersLab community feels we've done anything wrong please
send an email to info at cofounderslab. We're happy to consider changes needed
to ensure we're running our operations fairly.

------
ActVen
This incident provides a good lesson for anyone here on HN. Mentioning a
future action, communication, or practice that could be perceived as negative
in your TOS isn't enough. Sure, it is done all the time by many organizations.
That doesn't mean it is the best way to do it. People just don't read the TOS
in most cases. Companies shouldn't be surprised if they hear something about
someone being upset or confused by something hidden in a TOS.

P.S. CoFoundersLab looks cool. Thanks for having the initiative to start it
Shahab.

------
intellegacy
Got an email from BosiDNA but had no idea where it was from. Now I know.

I got a spam phone call too, which may or may not have been from cofounderslab
selling my data.

------
orangethirty
They didn't share it. They sold it. Big difference.

------
bosifounder
And just to set the record straight from bosiDNA.com's perspective...

I'm Joe, the founder/CEO of bosiDNA.com.

pain_perdu you are walking on extremely thin ice making the libelous claim
that my company is a spammer. Within minutes of you contact my company about
the email you received, my staff responded and within the same business day
provided you the information you requested. We also apologized for the mistake
in including you in an email invitation to our free webinar.

You receiving that single (ONE) email from us was a mistake. We took
responsibility for it and apologized. Yet you went ahead and posted this
ridiculous claim on a platform like Hacker News. Your intent is 100%
malicious. It is designed to hurt CoFoundersLab and bosiDNA.com. Why? Because
you received one stupid email? Come on man. It was a mistake.

Had you received multiple emails and no response when you contacted us, I can
understand taking the time to make this post. At that point, you would be well
intentioned to make the claim that my company is a "spammer".

I think you've crossed a line of human decency by taking our apology for a
manual glitch while uploading an email list and turned it into some sort of
"knight in shining armor" act to protect the world from "spammers" like my
company.

Do some homework on my company - and the amazing impact we are having on
entrepreneurship around the world. Read articles all over the world about us
and then you and other readers of this post decide if we need to spam
anyone...for anything...ever.

Let's all be productive and do things to help others - rather than try and
tear things down.

intellegacy - I looked you up and see that you also took the BOSI assessment.
You received the same email pain_perdu did. Please accept my apology. That was
a mistake on our part internally when sending out the invitation. We have not
emailed CofoundersLab users in the past. This was a goof on our part. Hope you
enjoyed the process of taking the assessment - and your results. I hope we
added value to your entrepreneurial journey - and will always be here to serve
in any way we can.

And one last thing pain_perdu - we don't "sell coaching services". We're one
of the most successful non-tech Accelerators in the US. Won several awards for
economic impact and job creation in just the last 12 months. Haven't won an
award for spamming yet though. But maybe someday...

~~~
pain_perdu
Hi bosifounder, thank you for taking the time to create a hackernews account
in response to this conversation, welcome to the community.

I think you made some interesting points in what you wrote but at the same
time I feel you're missing the broader problem here.

I feel that CoFoundersLab betrayed my confidence by sharing my personal and
confidential information with your company without my permission. They told me
when I signed up that "We promise not to share your email with anyone else."
And then without any appreciable warning or forenotice their system
transmitted my personal data to your server when i clicked the "take
assessment" link in my internal CoFoundersLab Profile.

Can you please explain why you feel this is an acceptable practice? I would
further like to quote for you the relevant section of CoFoundersLab's Privacy
Policy which states:

"The Personal Information collected by CoFoundersLab is kept completely
private and confidential and is not shared with third parties, unless you
submit a lead form from the Resources section of the website; in which base
the contact information you provide will shared with the third-party who
fulfills the specified product or service. CoFoundersLab shall make no effort
to validate any information provided by you."

<http://www.cofounderslab.com/privacy-policy>

I absolutely did not "submit a lead from the resources section of the website"
and therefore I do not understand why you or CoFoundersLab felt the sharing of
my personal data was OK.

~~~
bosifounder
pain_perdu we're early in our partnership with CoFoundersLab and I take
responsibility for the broader problem you've identified. Shahab and I will
work with our tech teams to ensure that only users who complete the process
get stored in the system. Had you completed the process and seen the results
like thousands of other users, you may have felt differently about the
process.

I totally get why you'd be frustrated not having engaged with our full process
and then received communication from us. You had no idea who we were. But just
know that users who do complete the process and get their results are happy
with us, like the BOSI process inside CoFoundersLab and understand that we
store their assessment results in case they ever need to be retrieved later.
An email address and userID is all we store in order to be able to retrieve
results in the future.

As with anything, you've helped us identify an opportunity for improvement.
But hopefully next time you run into something like this, you'll deal directly
with each company and give them ample opportunity to resolve the issue to your
satisfaction - and if they don't, I'll be cheering you on as you go after them
publicly.

