Unroll.me ‘heartbroken’

On April 23, 2017, unroll.me posted a blog with a byline from Jojo Hedya – the CEO and co-founder at Unroll.me.  In the blog, Jojo states that “it was heartbreaking to see that some of our users were upset to learn about how we monetize our free service.”  Yes, if the service is free, then you (and your information) are probably what is being sold and unroll.me was no exception.

How could the tenants of the un-CEO have helped Jojo?  Treat your employees with respect and, just as importantly, treat your customers with respect.  This is the time for the CEO to come clean with the customers.  Actually, the time was well before this, but since this is damage control, don’t swing for the emotion – “we’re heartbroken” – instead, treat your customers with respect and show how the data is actually anonymized so that no individual user data is discernible.

That information should have been clear when the user signs up for the service and not hidden in the ToS somewhere.