Enough With The Opt-Out Bullshit, Klout
Klout sucks. Not because of what they’re trying to do, in measuring your online influence (although I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a fan of that approach for a number of reasons).
Nor do they suck because they’ve engendered a mindset among people to try and grab Klout Perks, based on that perception of influence. Heck, you’ll always have folks that do nothing but want everything for free, so may as well have somewhere for them to spend their time and energy.
No, they suck because they’re stuck in the mindset that opt-out is better than opt-in.
Meaning, they don’t give you a choice when it comes to having a “profile” of you. It doesn’t matter if you sign up to the service or not, or whether you connect your accounts to grow your Klout score.
Because Klout automatically gives you a basic profile anyway.
No permission – there you are, as bright as day online, with whatever score they deem you fit to have based on their perception of you.
Note: I understand that by accepting the Terms of Service on the likes of Twitter, etc, your information can be shared. I’m not sold on that being turned into a full-on profile on another site, though.
I’ll admit, when Klout first came out, I was curious as to how it worked. As someone who needs to connect clients with perceived influencers for outreach and promotional programs, it seemed an interesting way to find those that could help.
Then the flaws appeared.
Just using my account as an example, I recently disconnected all my accounts from Klout, with the exception of Twitter as it wouldn’t let me disconnect that. As a result, my Klout “score” (or influence) dropped from 75 to 63.
So, even though I was still active on the networks I’d disconnected; even though I was sharing the same amount of information, and interacting just as much – if not more – on blogs, Klout felt I was less “influential”.
What they were really saying, though, is that because I wasn’t participating by their rules, I was less influential. Never mind the fact I was still getting “reactions”, if you like, for my interactions online – if Klout didn’t see them, they never happened.
Because I’ve written a fair few times about my lack of “trust” in how Klout perceives influence online, I thought it’d be hypocritical to keep an account there. So I went to delete, which is where the fun began.
I followed the instructions on their site to delete my account, and received an email from Lan at their contact centre advising my account had been removed. This was almost a week ago, and I was advised it could take a day to clear their system.
A week later, and I’m still there, even though I have no desire to be part of the Klout game anymore, nor do I wish to be “on display” on their site, since I (initially) never gave permission.
This is where the opt-out bullshit needs to stop.
It’s more than 10 years since Seth Godin wrote about Permission Marketing, and yet here we are, still being added to things we didn’t have a say in. Fair enough, I added details to Klout, but the initial permission wasn’t there. As it isn’t for anyone.
And to remove yourself, you have to go through hoops to get it done? That’s crap.
It’s not just Klout. Facebook is as bad, as are many other social networks. I had the same issue with Hashable, and got into a debate on Twitter with that service’s founder, who decreed, “Hashable’s not the kind of service people leave, hence there’s no need for an option to delete your account.” (This option was later added.)
Yes. There. Is.
You don’t add people to something and not ask them their permission (unless there’s some legal reason to do so). Especially when that information is there for anyone to see, and make a snap judgement on.
For example, some companies are using Klout scores in the hiring process. If someone has a low score because they don’t know they’re on Klout, and get passed by for a job even though they’re the best qualified, that makes your system screwy (it also doesn’t say much for the research angle of the company in question).
So, please, Klout, and anyone else that puts people onto their platform then makes it almost impossible to get off – be smart. Make it easy to leave. I was able to delete my Empire Avenue account with a single mouse click – why should it be any more difficult than that?
After all, it’s not like you’re just looking to have numbers to show off about your platform to possible investors. That wouldn’t be a reason to keep people on there that want to leave.
Right?
Update 26.10.2011: Seems the link to remove yourself from Klout is now showing an “invalid request”. You can try this one instead.
Note: This post is about Klout and its practices. I have nothing but good words for its CEO Joe Fernandez, who’s always responded to criticism about the service and looked at ways to improve.
~ Update: As of November 1st 2011, you can now delete your Klout account.
image: remuz
i love it thanks danny
I'm not saying that I agree with Klout (because I emphatically don't) but if I may add some clarity .. the bottom line is anything you put online is up for grabs.
So your best policy is to NOT put it up in the first place. If there is anything we've learned over the years, it is when you use someone else's site they can change the rules any time they want (aka Facebook et al). There is nothing truly safe or sacred when it comes to the internet .. and that includes social media.
I know that I've had to learn this the hard way myself, and anybody (or organization) can fall between the cracks and scrape it.. Like I've said time and again (and I can't stress this enough) -- DON'T give it up in the first place is still the best policy.
Having said that, and like I said earlier, I disagree with Klout and they should change their policy. But in the end it is up to each us as individuals to police our own data because we cannot depend on someone else to do it for us.
Cheers,
BB
blogbloke Hi mate,
To a degree, I completely agree with you - we *do* give up our privacy once we go online. The problem with Klout, though, is more than this.
~ Their advice to not be profiled is to make your feeds private. So, for an individual or company whose primary income stream is from online business, this is commercial suicide. Since the Klout model is flawed, I can understand why people or brands would want to opt-out their service - but saying they have to go invisible to do so is crazy (though they have since updated).
~ There's since been an issue with Klout setting up profiles for minors, even though they've made their settings private. This is wrong on so many levels it would take a complete post to go over. Just as well there is one. ;-)
http://dannybrown.me/2011/10/27/is-klout-using-our...
Again, they say they've fixed this, but as of yesterday people were still finding their kids on Klout.
I'm all for companies trying to make sense of purchase and emotional triggers, amongst other things. But there's a right way to do something, and then there's the other way. Unfortunately, Klout seems to be determined to be the other way (or at least it seems that way).
Cheers for the thoughtful comment, sir.
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DannyBrown I guess the word I should have used was perspective rather than clarity.
I think we are both in agreement here. I was just trying to paint a larger picture for your readers.
Thanks for a good post and letting me put in my two cents worth.
Give em hell Danny.
Cheers,
BB
Hey Danny and all,
I wanted to follow up on this post. Klout is about empowering individuals and showcasing their influence. We value our users first and your privacy is very important to us. We have recently strengthened our privacy controls and want to share what options we have available. Specifically:
*Registered users can choose to opt-out of Klout at any time from our profile settings page
* We use public data to score users (similar to a search engine), but if at any time a user wishes to opt-out of being scored they can do so from our privacy page)
I want to let you know we take feedback like this very seriously and have worked to address it. Thanks for your time.
-Megan Berry
Marketing Manager, Klout
meganberry Thanks for the heads-up, Megan, nice to see Klout listening to feedback.
Question about the profiles - what about non-registered users that you still create profiles for (at least, profiles that encourage sign-up)? Unless I'm wrong, the current set-up means they have to sign in via Twitter to opt-out of Klout.
So, isn't that still giving Klout more information before opt-out, thus adding to the numbers, and meaning that these folks are on your database until your cache catches up to their deletion?
Wouldn't it just be simpler to make Klout opt-in from the start?
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DannyBrown Hey Danny,
For those with public profiles (i.e. public Twitter profiles) they do need to auth to opt-out. The *only* thing we do during that process is ensure you are the actual owner of that account and you're not trying to remove mine for instance. We do not take any other information.
As for doing an opt-in only solution -- we do that for any account that is private. If you choose to create a public Twitter profile, that profile and your tweets are public and shown on many sites including search engines, social crawlers etc. We're using the same information they are. It's similar to the fact that as soon as you create a website you open it up to Google indexing it unless you explicitly opt-out. Hope that helps!
Thanks,
Megan Berry
DannyBrown Maybe sometime soon, Klout will drop the awful CS script and actually answer the questions you're asking? Nah, I bet Joe is still on vacation.
Influence without context is not particularly valuable. I can see how a measure of influence might be useful if you are trying to identify consumers, who use social media and have expressed a certain intention or preference for your product or service. But alone it doesn't provide enough business value from which to a make decision nor does tying it to another metrics, like sales, improve it much. I think you sum it up when you wrote "I wasn’t participating by their rules, I was less influential". For a business looking to reach their customers or prospects, the only set of rules that really matter are the ones those consumers help define.
Collectual That's the perfect point, Jennifer, the issue of context. Cool, you might be influential in marketing; or I might be influential in social media. But for what customer?
Is my social media-only experience going to be useful when it comes to managing marketing budgets, KPI's, pain points and adjustable strategy?
Is your awesome marketing knowledge going to be useful at launching a product specifically for Chinese basket weavers?
Influence is such a very small part of an overall package, that this whole "we're super important" BS is getting pretty dangerous from a real-world business angle.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, appreciated!
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Weird, I signed in to Klout using my Twitter account (haven't posted there in months!) to find I'm a very valuable 13! Too bad that although having a relatively high influencing level in the outlets I use (I write for ARNnet and iTWire - where I broke the Steve Jobs numberplate story )
Checking out my profile, they seem to make some very off conclusions: "You don't share very much, but you follow the social web more than you let on. You may just enjoy observing more than sharing or you're checking this stuff out before jumping in full-force." How on earth do they know that? Other than the fact that have an account but post rarely!
Basically, this is crap in technicolour!!
david_heath Now, now, David - Klout knows exactly what they're talking about. They tell us so... ;-)
And love your example, mate - perfect way to show the things that really matter when it comes to cause and effect.
Cheers!
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Klout's recent scoring changes are the straw that breaks the camel's back. I've disconnected my accounts and asked Klout via email to delete my profile information (hey Klout—providing no web interface to opt-out is SLEAZY).
My social media day-to-day connections and conversations are what's important to me, not a Klout number.
Ultimately, the metric that concerns me is how many people visit my website and blog, and that number has been rising very nicely regardless of what Klout says about my popularity on social media.
ASegar The more Klout ignores the opt-out requests, the sleazier it becomes, Adrian - perfect word to use.
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sickontheroad told me to come here, as I've been defending Klout for a while.
How do you feel about Alexa's "opt-out" policy? http://bit.ly/u6a1QQ
Ah good someone to argue Klout's case, sorry Danny, but you are naive in thinking that opting out of services like Klout is the answer to your privacy concerns. The term is Social Media and it implies an aspect of social.
I tell people that Social Media is like entering a 24/7 cocktail party wearing one of those plastic name cards where you only know a few of the people... you might meet anyone.
All Klout is doing is what other have been doing for years... The good news is that Klout is exposing some of the information you are sharing and that then allows you to lock down your data more effectively if indeed you do not want to share it.
NCompass This isn't about privacy concerns - I don't mention that anywhere in the post. There is one about privacy issues here:
http://dannybrown.me/2011/10/27/is-klout-using-our...
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roniweisssickontheroad At least they have an opt-out option and more than one way to delete. The difference is, Alexa doesn't claim to be "the standard for influence", nor does it affect someone's job potentials. Different beasts.
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DannyBrownsickontheroad Blaming Klout for affecting someone's job potential makes no sense. That's totally outside of them. I can guarantee that Alexa scores have come into play for many a travel blogger, whether or not they've received a press trip.
What am I missing here? This doesn't sound like opt-out:
"Can I remove my site from Alexa’s Site Info pages?
No. Alexa provides free, traffic metrics for all websites."
Klout have just changed their scoring - now Facebook seems to have a far greater influence, making it of far less use to me as a metric of engagement. Klout has jumped the shark.
Unlike some of your previous articles, I strongly agree with this one. And what is this Klout mania going on everywhere? I am not a number, my influence can't be measured the way you want to. I see people scheming the Klout results, but have little or no influence what so ever. It's completely unreliable tool.
Klout CEO, Joe Fernandez, claims "People put Klout score on their resume."
Let me ask you one question: Would you hire someone who spends all day keeping Klout scores up? NO, you hire someone to work!
POTUS31 Maybe I'll start putting my Boy Scout badges on my resume... ;-)
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#cure4klout What if ChuckieCheeze locked you inside for life? Stupid, right? You can walk out. So why can't you opt-out of Klout?
Opt-out should be a definite no-no for any respectable organization. As for Klout itself, more education is needed about online influence. When I first began engaging with social media, I had never heard of Klout. As time went on, I became familiar with the 'service' and started checking my own Klout score to see how I (and I confess, others) were doing. After a few months of tweeting more regularly and reading more bloggers, I'm looking at other indicators of someone's influence. For example, I just read a great post by @bdorman264 about one of his key analytics--he gets an average of over 63 responses to his posts. Now that's influence!
Shelley Pringlebdorman264 Exactly, Shelley - we're all influenced by different things at different moments, so a platform that defines influence by the reactions they see immediately has a flaw.
Cheers!
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I wonder how many more services we'll see that are opt-out vs. opt-in? It seems more and more companies are taking the Facebook approach and opting you in without your permission. I do find it interesting that your score dropped just because you disconnected your social platforms. I also find it interesting that they only way you can get out of having a Klout score is by making your Twitter profile private. So, even though you've been building your Twitter community for four years, you have to make your account private for them to let you be.
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ginidietrich Exactly. I wonder about the legality of Klout's approach, especially since I've revoked the permission from all my social accounts, which is where they essentially get permission from in the first place. How can you keep something you have no permission to? Time for more questions...
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It is posts like these that make me proud of the movement that is 'blogging'. Very, very powerful Mr. Brown. Keep leading the way, keep pushing what others see as 'OK' and asking, 'why???'.
Marcus
Marcus_Sheridan Cheers,mate. Sadly, going by Megan Berry's response below, Klout don't care about the user's wishes to be removed. I'm starting to see interesting feedback about this approach - somehow I think this topic might just be getting started...
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You mean you don't want to impress Klout, Danny? Shock Horror!
I suspected that the scores were off and had no idea what mine was until I clicked on my own twitter handle on HootSuite. So I guess I shouldn't be so impressed with my score of 59, LOL! There is a USTwitter doctors list put out by this medical marketing guy and he included our Klout scores. I ranked a lot higher than Dr.Perricone who was somewhere in the high 20's(you know the dermatologist who wrote the "Perricone Prescription" a diet for perfect skin and has his own product line). Somehow, he seems to me a bit more influential but who am I to say!
Ditto most of the sentiments on here, definitely should be able to easily opt out.
cheers,rajka
ExpatDoctorMom That's the most annoying thing, Rajka. Fair enough, many people use and like Klout. But for those that don't, saying it's up to them to make their accounts private, as opposed to being able to leave, is a cop-out. Think there'll be more said on this topic.
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Ok, my score just popped up to 62 so we are almost even now... that all your platforms are turned off, ha, ha, ha. I think the recent increase was recommendations for Klout +. Now if only they had sensible measurable stats and not just nonsense. DannyBrown
I can recently see a lot of crazy "influences" on Klout. People are being assigned influential on irrelevant topics based on crazy things. Although many people, like me, do not realize that they didn't agree to be on Klout, it doesn't mean that anyone can add us to anything. Thanks for the headsup.
Danny - one thing that I really appreciate about you is that you tell it like it is. PERIOD. I'll be honest, I've never even thought about the point of the opt-in with Klout. I've always known I wasn't a fan...but mainly because I simply can't imagine an algorithm being able to speak a lick about my influence. It has to create a new type of influence which is, in my opinion a lot less influential.
jk Allen You know who influences me the most, mate? My wife and my son. Everything I do is for the quality of life I want them to have. None of them are "measured" by Klout - so it kinda blows a hole in the platform... ;)
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DannyBrown Beautifully said brother. Double 'like'.
Hey Danny,
I'm the Marketing Manager here at Klout and wanted to reach out with more info. Klout collects public data in order to measure influence. It is similar to how Google crawls websites in order to display them in their search results. We don't display any information that isn't available publicly on your Twitter profile and we do not collect any private data without your explicit permission. If you don't wish your data to be public, you can look to your privacy setting on that network in order to change it. Hope that helps and feel free to reach out with further questions.
Thanks,
Megan
---
meganberry
Marketing Manager, Klout
megan@Klout.com
meganberry Hi Megan,
Thanks for dropping by, appreciated. While I understand where you get the information from, your approach to "solving it" seems off.
What you're basically saying is that if I, or anyone else, doesn't want Klout to have a profile of me, I need to go "invisible" by making my social accounts private.
The problem with that is obvious. If a core part of my business is done online - whether by tweets, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc - I have to close that part of my business off, just so I can get Klout to remove me. I have to protect my tweets; make Facebook invisible to anyone but a trusted few; deny LinkedIn users the chance to see my expertise, etc.
How can that be a sensible solution? Why should someone have to make themselves private to stop you making them public?
What happened to the, "Okay, social web user, we respect your wishes and will completely remove you from our system"? Are you denying these requests? Because I think that could be an interesting approach to try and uphold, no?
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DannyBrownmeganberry Not allowing people to opt out seems to me to be the ultimate arrogance. I'd caution that this could be a very slippery slope as more people hear about this and want out. This just begs people to find ways to mess with the ranking and write code to keep it away from them.
Initially I didn't really care about and don't pay attention to Klout. Now? I want out! Seriously, figure out how to let people opt out of your service without having to hide everything else from everyone else or I'd recommend preparing for some backlash I doubt is going to help Klout's reputation or influence.
RickRice meganberry It does seem to say a few things about the company's ethics, Rick, if they're basically saying they don't care if you want to leave, ain't gonna happen. Interesting approach...
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DannyBrown It's actually based on Twitter's policy. When you create a new account on Twitter, your Twitter profile is public by default. Unless your account is changed to protected from your account settings, your Tweets are publicly visible on your profile page, in Twitter search, and through the Twitter API. As soon as they have been made publicly available, third parties (such as Google, ourselves, and other search engines) have access to these publicly visible Tweets—like other information on the internet.
If you want your Tweets to only be available to approved followers. you can set your account to protected. Tweets posted by a protected account are only visible to approved followers and not otherwise publicly available to third parties. Twitter has a help page with more information about public and protected accounts here: http://support.twitter.com/articles/14016.
meganberry Megan,
I understand how the information is gathered. That's not really what the post is about.
I've followed all your instructions to remove my details and yet there I am, still.
Even taking into account the possible legalities of hosting my information without endorsement, and when I've removed your permission to do so, the ethical and moral point of respecting someone's wishes to leave is where Klout is missing the boat.
You mention Twitter and Google - ironic, given that these allow you to close your account completely. So why can't Klout offer the same grace?
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Hi Danny and Megan,Thanks for opening this topic up for discussion.I know that permission and privacy are huge concerns for everyone these days. As Danny points out this is about our right to choose. We may want a public profile on Twitter to support our friendships, clients, businesses and ideas but not want the distraction of keeping score using numbers.I for one have just emailed Klout today to have my profile removed and disconnected the account from my other networks. I'll keep you posted on how long it takes them to get back to me.The point that Klout, and I think Facebook are missing is this. Some of us don't want to be your product. Some of us want to focus on serving our clients and connecting with our audience in meaningful ways that can never be measured. High scores don't always mean you're doing work that matters, far from it.Here's a post I wrote about this for the audience over at Pushing Social in January. It's more relevant than ever today.http://pushingsocial.com/how-do-you-measure-influe...
Bernadette Jiwa Thanks, Bernadette, and completely agree, the option to be removed should be available, and simple to achieve. All the hoops and excuses about "make your social profiles private" doesn't quite cut it... meganberry
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Hey Danny, your score went down... get over it... No-one should ever take these sort of data collecting sites seriously.
The truth of Stats is not the hits, numbers or figures, it's the change over time... Obama is still president even though he's got low ratings... services like Klout just play with the data they can get, leave them to it.
And by the way, for what possible reason do I have to sign in to leave a comment on this Blog, I am much more suspicious about what LiveFyre will do with my data than Klout.
NCompass If you've read other posts of mine, or tweets, etc, you'll know I don't give a rat's ass about Klout's scores. I do care about how they don't allow users to leave easily, or how they set you up an account whether you like it or not.
With regards Livefyre, no-one forces you to sign in and comment.
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All points duly taken... and I have put some thought into this now... we're forever hearing about employers looking up employees on Facebook, Twitter users being exposed for things and generally to much of our private info escaping the system.
But you can't blame the likes of @Klout - all they're doing is collecting existing data. It is the places where you put your data that count, which is why I worried more about Livefyre than Klout...
It seems to me your real enemy is Facebook, Twitter and all the other services Klout uses.
NCompass For sure, the initial point-of-contact, if you like, offers our information too freely at times (although, to be fair, we did sign up knowing that was in the Terms and Conditions of Twitter, Facebook, etc).
The bigger problem with Klout is that, even when you revoke all their permissions and access, they still run your profile. It's as if they're saying you endorse them, when you clearly don't (something Brian Driggs discusses in an earlier comment).
It's also more to do with professional respect and (potentially) consumer law online. If a user asks to be removed from your list - whether that's an email one or a telemarketing one or, in this case, a Klout one - that should be respected. And in some cases, it's a legal obligation.
This is where Klout's falling down.
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NCompass@klout
Well, technically, as Klout is pulling in your name and likeness and using it in such a way as to suggest your use or endorsement of their commercial product without your express, written consent, it's illegal. (Just Google "California Civil Code 3344" and see for yourself.)
Opt-in trumps opt-out any day of the week. In a perfect world, Klout would only publish names, faces, and scores for those people who sign up, verify themselves, and opt-into such displays. Legality aside (US Common Law also provides for protection of one's right to privacy/publicity, and control over how one's name/likeness are used for commercial purposes similarly to the California Civil Code), the implementation of a simple opt-out request would not only spare Klout all the time spent putting our fires, but possibly buy them a little more slack from the more vocal social media community.
If I'd clicked a link to remove my profile and was met with a simple explanation of why Klout thinks their measurement, in time, would prove beneficial to me as one who views the internet as a digital dimension of reputation, and asked if I would allow them to track my online activities *privately* in an effort to advance their research, I would probably connect all kinds of accounts, even going so far as to offer feedback on venues they might be missing (ie; discussion forums, where I have a reach approaching 1.5MM people worldwide based on over a decade participating in them). As it were, having my name and picture up there suggesting I use or endorse their service without my consent wasn't nearly as infuriating as being all but blown off when I asked nicely to be treated with the most basic of common courtesies.
ON A POSITIVE NOTE: I received an email from Megan @Klout this morning advising they had deactivated my profile and asking me to allow them up to 90 days for it to completely vanish. THANK YOU MEGAN.
I will keep tabs on the URL (http://klout.com/dr1665) over the next three months to be certain this happens, but I share the link here in case anyone struggling with the same problem in the future can see that Klout is willing to honor such requests, even if it is akin to pulling teeth at times.
If I'm going to rail against a brand online for their wrongdoings, I must also be willing to acknowledge their efforts to sincerely make things right. Thus, my comment here today.
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[...] Enough With The Opt-Out Bullshit, Klout originally appeared on Danny Brown | Social Media Marketing Blog – The Human Side of Media and the Social Side of Marketing under a Creative Commons license. [...]
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[...] day online, with whatever score they deem you fit to have based on their perception of you,” writes Danny. “You don’t add people to something and not ask them their permission (unless there’s [...]
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[...] believe in what they’re doing, and I can’t begrudge them for that. The problem comes in our inability to opt-out of having our names, likenesses, and information being displayed against our [...]
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[...] Enough With The Opt-Out Bullshit, Klout [...]
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[...] this case (see below), they’re featuring Danny Brown’s rant against Klout on the Klout topic page. Nice to see they aren’t censoring [...]
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[...] Enough With the Opt-Out Bullsh*t, Klout (via Danny [...]
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[...] of Influence” is around the more and more people are questioning it. Even some like Danny Brown are trying to remove themselves (unsuccessfully) from their system. In a Klout chat (#kloutchat) on [...]
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[...] with the opt-out BS Klout – a post about Klout that will get you thinking about how other sites are creating profiles [...]
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[...] If I’d clicked a link to remove my profile and was met with a simple explanation of why Klout thinks their measurement, in time, would prove beneficial to me as one who views the internet as a digital dimension of reputation, and asked if I would allow them to track my online activities *privately* in an effort to advance their research, I would probably connect all kinds of accounts, even going so far as to offer feedback on venues they might be missing (ie; discussion forums, where I have a reach approaching 1.5MM people worldwide based on over a decade participating in them). As it were, having my name and picture up there suggesting I use or endorse their service without my consent wasn’t nearly as infuriating as being all but blown off when I asked nicely to be treated with the most basic of common courtesies. Opt-out should be a definite no-no for any respectable organization. As for Klout itself, more education is needed about online influence. When I first began engaging with social media, I had never heard of Klout. As time went on, I became familiar with the ‘service’ and started checking my own Klout score to see how I (and I confess, others) were doing. After a few months of tweeting more regularly and reading more bloggers, I’m looking at other indicators of someone’s influence. For example, I just read a great post by @bdorman264 about one of his key analytics–he gets an average of over 63 responses to his posts. Now that’s influence. Read more on Opt Out Email Marketing [...]
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[...] couple of months back, I wrote about online influence tool Klout, and their approach to how they build their membership (they use opt-out profiling, versus the more [...]
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[...] couple of months back, I wrote about online influence tool Klout, and their approach to how they build their membership (they use opt-out profiling, versus the more [...]
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[...] make profiles, when users haven’t connected their details with the service. I pointed her to the response from Megan Berry, Klout’s marketing manager, where she says if we don’t want to be tracked, then to make [...]
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[...] There’s another way in which Klout, specifically has been controversial. ”Everyone has Klout” says the Klout home page. What that means is that Klout will create a profile for you, whether you’ve opted in to be measured or not. Once they’ve created a profile for you, there is no way to opt out or deactivate your profile. Even if you don’t want to be measured, profiled, tracked or seen as endorsing their product. [...]
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[...] ability to delete our Klout accounts. We have Danny Brown to thank for the knowledge of how futile it is to trust that Klout will follow through, [...]
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[...] Danny Brown has pointed out many times how awful Klout’s opt-out and account deletion service is. [...]
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[...] of people without their permission (based on data from their friends who ARE on Klout).” See this great Danny Brown post on Klout; Danny says that most of the profiles on Klout didn’t opt in, and worse, it appears they can’t [...]
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[...] It's awesome that there's a real backlash going on against them right now. Salon has their "Klout's Bad for Your Soul" piece and several bloggers have shit-kicked them as well. Here's Scalzi's piece. Or this. [...]
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[...] In her article, Ries also cited that this Klout privacy invasion wasn’t a new issue; in fact Danny Brown reported on Klout’s lack of an opt-out option in [...]
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[...] including data – including the scanning of data of minors. The end result of all this angst has been a steady stream of influencers writing posts calling for changes to Klout and/or [...]
