We Value Conversion More Than We Value Trust: Wading Into The Unroll.Me Discussion

So the moment I read Mike Isaac’s TK profile it jumped out that Unroll.me was going to have a problem on their hands.

Their consumers were surprised at what was being done with their data and no one likes surprises.

Regardless of legality (it appears 100% legal) and regardless of uniqueness (what unroll.me is doing isn’t unique), their PR team’s initial response was “read the ToS.” Uh, no, wrong answer.

Their CEO then published a blog post which was either sincere or insincere depending on your parsing of “sorry” and general cynicism. Others chimed in with “what did you think, it was free” vs the “my data is my data” purity test.

Then today, a friend of the CEO wrote a passionate essay basically saying the CEO is a good guy and tech industry sucks overall.