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Comment by tewks | Hacker News Reader

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tewks

Want to build magic like this into your own iOS or Android app? Try out our brand new, super fast APIs:

https://github.com/bumptech/bump-api-ios

https://github.com/bumptech/bump-api-android

Email me if you have any questions: tg@bu.mp

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Some feedback: I just filled out my virtual card with my contact info, and suddenly got an email from you guys in my inbox. I didn't sign up for an account or anything.

IMO this is pretty shitty - I put this information into the app to send to other people, not so Bump can email me. And now I feel iffy putting other data into the app - Bump is not strictly the data exchange platform I thought it was.

This is a violation of user trust - if you want to store/act on any information users put into the app you need to let them know first.

This really, really rubbed me the wrong way - this is the first time any app of mine has ever intercepted a form field, sent it to the mothership without my consent, and used the data in a way that was never stated nor implied. App deleted.

[edit] Oh hey look, the email addressed me by the name I put into the vCard. I guess now you have my phone number too.

Thanks for the warning. I'm really wary of companies that don't understand basic issues like this.

"Please try again. Bump works better if you enable location on your browser."

Seems like bump works better without enabling location, maybe because I prefer it to fail rather than to spy on me. Talk about not failing gracefully.

Bump actually does need the location, because it's important to filtering all the requests they get. It could certainly be abused, but unlike most other apps that ask your location bump actually needs it.

We are a cloud based solution that takes privacy very seriously. We do not share your personal information with people or services you don't want. Our privacy policy is available both in the app and online: http://bu.mp/privacy

>We do not share your personal information with people or services you don't want.

Clearly that's incorrect, because the complainer didn't want you to have his personal information.

Also the statement "We may use your Personal Information as we believe to be necessary or appropriate in any manner permitted under applicable law, including laws outside your country of residence" clearly gives you the right to sell his personal information to anyone.

Isn't it kind of a given that when you give your email address to a service, that you are allowing that service to contact you?

Otherwise what's the point of having the address?

I haven't used this app but I think the parent had expected that the data he entered would be confined to the application, not sent to the app developer. Simple analogy: Would you expect Microsoft to harvest every e-mail address you enter into Outlook?

Outlook is an application, not a web connected service, though. If I enter my email address when signing up for, say, Office Live, I'd expect to see a Microsoft email in my inbox every now and then.

Would you expect Google to send emails to people whose addresses have been entered into Gmail?

No, but that's not what happened here. You filled out your personal card which will be shared out with everyone you "bump" with. I haven't used the app, but I'd assume this fills some kind of registration function.

Bump emailed the guy that used their service. Your stretching the analogy a bit much.

I hope you realize that this response completely fails to address his complaint.

You are aware that your email address is currency on the Internet, right, and that people are going to design all sorts of honeypots to get it?

Here's some feedback : tapping the spacebar with the phone? That's dumb. Why? I have to hit hard for the "bump" to happen. But that's not really a problem since hitting a keyboard with a cellphone makes no sense. Consider another scenario :

a) The user clicks somewhere (or vocal command?) to enter a listening state.

b) Then he shakes his phone.

But then you lose the thing that "magically" links the phone to the computer, i.e the simultaneous record of the event occurence.

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