Truer words ...
He then released an email string [PDF] between Whisper executives and the out-house lawyers [...]
Outhouse lawyers. Something oddly redundant (and startling true) about that phrase....
Former editor of "anonymous" app Whisper, Neetzan Zimmerman, has left the company and joined Washington DC rag, The Hill. Zimmerman was at the center of a controversy late last year when it was revealed Whisper was tracking its users, even those that had specifically asked not to be followed, in order to provide news fodder to …
Yeah it is, but maybe they misled him as well and he didn't know until someone he knows at the Grun told him what they found to be going on privately. Lying to people seems to be Whisper's MO, so I wouldn't be too surprised they lied to an employee. Even a high profile one.
Then again, he used to be associated with Gawker Media, and they're not exactly a paragon of ethics or legality themselves but they tend to know how to save their own skins, so maybe he figured out which way the wind was blowing and got the hell out.
"CEO Heyward claims that the changes were "finalized" in July in order to be published in October."
So, first thing is that no one really believes that to be true and the changes were hastily made once they were caught out. It's also possible that they had language already drafted that they could then insert in short order if they did get busted.
BUT, even if Heyward's statement is 100% true and these changes were all ready done and dusted and planned long before this all blew-up, I fail to see how that exonerates them or even lessens the misrepresentations (also known as lies).
The fact remains that the problematic practices were in place well before the policies were available to the customers to view, whether they were intending to put them in or not. At the time they weren't there and that's that.
If only everyone would just simply stop using Whisper. Sadly, it seems people just don't care. With Instagram/Facebook's grab for rights to photos it took celebrity backlash to strike the chord but that's hardly going to happen with an app that's supposed to be anonymous!
It's probably not that they don't care, they just don't know about it and they don't know the alternatives. The sudden increase in people attending "crypto parties" where normal people get taught how to do basic e-mail and disk encryption is a sign that those who know about alternatives do care.
This is also why politicians try their best to discredit encryption, so the common people believe encryption is only used by criminals and commercial companies. (there's surely quite a bit of overlap here)