Rapleaf
 |
A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject. (October 2012) |
| Type | Private start-up |
|---|---|
| Industry | Database marketing |
| Founded | May, 2006 |
| Headquarters | USA |
| Key people | Auren Hoffman |
| Employees | 11-50 (as of November 2, 2012)[1] |
| Website | www.rapleaf.com |
Rapleaf is a marketing data and software company founded by Auren Hoffman and Manish Shah. The Founders Fund led a seed round of $1.0 million;[2] other angel investors[3] included Ron Conway.[2]
[edit] History, products, and services
The company's first product, Rapleaf, was a meta-reputation system that allows users to create reviews and ratings of consumer transactions, which they then contribute to multiple e commerce websites. On January 26, 2007, Rapleaf released Upscoop, a service that allowed users to search for and manage their contacts by email address across multiple social networking sites.[4]
In 2012, Rapleaf began selling segmented data tied to email addresses for marketers to personalize email communications.
[edit] Controversy and Backlash
On May 15, 2006, eBay removed a number of auction listings where the seller had included links to Rapleaf, claiming they were in violation of its terms of use.[5]
In late August 2007, Upscoop began e-mailing entire contact lists that were provided by their users when they log in. This caused some criticism,[6] and the company later provided an apology for doing so.[7]
On July 10, 2008, Rapleaf changed its interface[8] so that it no longer allows users to search people by email addresses. Instead, the service only allows a registered user to view their own reputation and the websites (social and business networking) to which their own email address is registered. There was an immediate negative backlash by companies and individuals[9] who had been using Rapleaf to both manage reputations and investigate the authenticity of people.
In October 2010, the Wall Street Journal reported that Rapleaf had transmitted personally identifiable information, including Facebook and MySpace IDs. Rapleaf said it had inadvertently transmitted that info and had ceased the practice.[10]
On October 28, 2010, Facebook banned Rapleaf from scraping data on Facebook, and Rapleaf said it would delete the Facebook IDs it had collected.[11]
[edit] References
- ^ "Rapleaf Company Profile". LinkedIn. Retrieved 2012-11-02.
- ^ a b Marshall, Matt (June 11, 2006). "Rapleaf, the e-commerce reputation manager, raises ~$1M to take on eBay". The Mercury News-. Retrieved 2007-01-26.
- ^ Olsen, Stefanie (August 31, 2007). "At Rapleaf, your personals are public". CNet.
- ^ Gonzales, Nick (January 26, 2007). "Stalk Your Contact List with UpScoop". Techcrunch. Retrieved 2007-01-26.
- ^ Michael Arrington (May 17, 2006). "eBay Bans Rapleaf Links". Techcrunch. Retrieved 2007-01-26.
- ^ "Rapleaf and Upscoop spam".
- ^ Hoffman, Auren (6 September 2007). "Start-ups, privacy, and being wrong". Rapleaf Blog. Archived from the original on 2007-09-17. Retrieved 2010-03-07.
- ^ Hoffman, Auren (10 July 2008). "Changes to Rapleaf Services". Rapleaf Blog. Archived from the original on 2008-08-01. Retrieved 2010-03-07.
- ^ Rapleaf users. "Comments on blog post 'Changes to Rapleaf Services'". Rapleaf Blog. Archived from the original on 2008-08-22. Retrieved 2010-03-07.
- ^ Emily Steel (Oct. 25, 2010). "A Web Pioneer Profiles Users by Name". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2010-11-01.
- ^ Christopher Heine (Nov. 1, 2010). "Rapleaf Agrees to Leave Facebook Alone". ClickZ. Retrieved 2010-11-01.
