Unroll.Me Under Investigation for Selling Users' Emails without Their Consent
Schubert Jonckheer & Kolbe today announced that it launched an investigation into the privacy practices of Unroll.Me. The company, which markets a service that claims to "clean up your inbox," recently disclosed that it reads and sells its users' private emails.
Unroll.Me offers a free web service that allows users to easily unsubscribe from mailing lists, online newsletters, and other spam emails. In return, Unroll.Me displays advertisements to it users. But unbeknownst to those millions of users, Unroll.Me—through its parent company, Slice Technologies, Inc.—regularly reads and sells its users' private emails.
“Did You Use Unroll.Me? Contact Us to Protect Your Private Emails and Receive Compensation.”
For example, the New York Times recently reported that Unroll.Me and Slice sold millions of its' users emails to Uber—including receipts from rides on its competitor, Lyft—so that Uber could mine the data for competitive intelligence and monitor Lyft's users. Although Unroll.Me claims that the data is anonymized, it is highly likely that, even if users' names and email addresses were removed—Uber could still identify individual users. And this data included incredibly sensitive information, including the location of users, their movements, and partial credit card numbers. Unroll.Me has not disclosed what other user data it may have sold—and what other companies it may have sold it to.
Unroll.Me has, however, admitted that it wasn't "explicit enough" that it was reading and selling its users' emails. Unroll.Me CEO and Co-Founder, Jojo Hedaya, even acknowledged that although it has a terms of service agreement and privacy policy, "the reality is most of us - myself included - don't take the time to thoroughly review them." But the company has thus far refused to stop the practice of selling its users' data or even to prominently disclose its privacy practices in its marketing of the service.
We are actively investigating whether Unroll.Me and Slice may have violated numerous state and federal law by intercepting, reading, and selling their users' emails without their consent. If you have used Unroll.Me, your privacy may have been violated, and you may be entitled to statutory damages and an injunction forcing Unroll.Me to stop the practice.
If you have used Unroll.Me and would like to help us investigate this issue—or would like to participate in a potential class-action lawsuit—please complete the form below for a free legal consultation.
