Absurdity
Social Media App Charges Users to Prevent Their Data from Being Sold
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
Loom, the social media platform best known for its Mood Board feature and its 2021 settlement with the FTC over seventeen separate definitions of the word "anonymized," announced Wednesday that it would begin charging users a monthly fee to prevent their personal data from being sold to outside parties.
The fee is $12.99 a month. The alternative is free.
Chief Executive Derek Paulson described the new Privacy Shield tier as "a meaningful way for users to take ownership of their own digital experience," which is the company's way of saying that data has always been for sale and that the new development is that you may now outbid the advertisers.
Users who do not subscribe will be automatically enrolled in the Community Data Partnership Program, a designation that Loom's terms of service define across eleven pages as "a mutually beneficial arrangement whereby the user contributes behavioral insights in exchange for continued access to Loom's platform at no monetary cost." The word "contributes" appears forty-three times. The word "consent" does not appear.
The Privacy Shield plan covers data collected from the moment of subscription forward. Data collected during the previous period of the account, which for the average Loom user is four years and eight months of location pings, purchase behavior, search history, sleep patterns inferred from scroll activity, and what the company internally categorizes as "emotional volatility indicators," is described in the FAQ as "legacy community contributions" and is not included.
Paulson addressed this at the company's investor call Thursday morning. "We're very excited about where this puts us in terms of user trust," he said. "Going forward."
The subscription confirmation email, which is sent immediately upon sign-up to verify that the payment processed, is routed through Loom's advertising infrastructure, where the timestamp, device ID, and confirmed-active status of the email address are logged as a data point categorized as "high-intent user signal" and made available to Loom's marketing partners within approximately four minutes of the user clicking Subscribe.
A Loom spokesperson confirmed this is accurate and said it is covered under section 14(c) of the Privacy Shield terms, which the spokesperson described as "pretty standard."
Reaction among users has been mixed, in the sense that some people are angry and others have already paid.
Marcus Delaney, a 34-year-old project manager in Columbus, Ohio, said he subscribed immediately. "I don't want my data sold," he said. "I clicked the button and it confirmed my email and I thought, okay, that's fine, I'm protected now." He was asked if he had read section 14(c). "I did not," he said. "But I feel better."
A competing platform, Verve, announced Friday that it would offer a similar privacy tier at $9.99 a month, and that users could earn credits toward free months by completing a survey about their household income, shopping preferences, and relationship status. The survey results are not covered by the privacy tier. Verve called this "a great value."
Privacy advocates have criticized Loom's model, though Loom's VP of Policy Communications, Tara Shen, said the company welcomed the dialogue. "User trust is our north star," she said, in an email sent from an address that Loom's own advertising platform lists as a Premium Verified Contact. When asked what that designation meant, Shen said she would follow up. She has not followed up.
The Privacy Shield tier is available now in the app, under Settings, then Privacy, then a subsection called "Your Choices," which is behind a second menu called "Advanced," which requires the user to confirm their password, at which point the password confirmation is logged as account activity and used to update the user's engagement score.
The free tier remains free, in the same way that a lure is free to the fish.
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