MacRumors Sponsor Incogni has a very shady record

[ampm99]

Numerous posts on Reddit and other platforms talk about problems using this service.
This included a dramatic increase in spam and email threats after using the service.
For example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/PrivacyGuides/comments/11ttu6b

MacRumors need to find a different sponsor before the brand suffers. Hard to regain the trust of readers if they get scammed by a sponsor.

 

[zkap]

Maybe that's what's happening, for all I know. I just didn't get that impression from that very informative post on Reddit. It's good to know, it just doesn't necessarily point to Incogni doing anything wrong in the formal sense. It seems to me like they do what they are paid to do - request that data brokers stop using your data. The unfortunate part is that they can only do this by giving out your data so data brokers can identify which data not to use anymore, and when you combine that with the fact Incogni obviously doesn't know which data brokers have your data, they end up spreading it. Which would not be harmful if data brokers were all going to comply with the request, which clearly not all of them will.
So it seems like the way this job is done defeats the point if even one of the brokers who didn't previously have your info is malicious.

 

[ampm99]

Maybe that's what's happening, for all I know. I just didn't get that impression from that very informative post on Reddit. It's good to know, it just doesn't necessarily point to Incogni doing anything wrong in the formal sense. It seems to me like they do what they are paid to do - request that data brokers stop using your data. The unfortunate part is that they can only do this by giving out your data so data brokers can identify which data not to use anymore, and when you combine that with the fact Incogni obviously doesn't know which data brokers have your data, they end up spreading it. Which would not be harmful if data brokers were all going to comply with the request, which clearly not all of them will.
So it seems like the way this job is done defeats the point if even one of the brokers who didn't previously have your info is malicious.

That was just and example of many. It's owned by Sharksurf, and adware company. That sound like a conflict to start.

 

[r6girl]

We appreciate that you've raised this concern. We've asked Incogni about this and they've assured us that they follow privacy laws including the GDPR, CCPA, and PIPEDA in handling customer data and expect that the data brokers to whom they submit customer information to follow these laws as well in not using the data for any other purposes. There are harsh punishments for violations of these laws and Incogni believes users should bring any violations of these laws to the attention of their governing bodies.

Incogni is part of Surfshark, which is a Netherlands-based company offering a popular brand of VPN and other privacy-focused services, not an adware company. Surfshark merged with Nord Security (Nord VPN) in 2022 but both companies still operate independently.

Finally, while our newsletter sponsorship process does seek to ensure that potential sponsors offer products and services that align with our audience and we seek to work with trustworthy sponsors, as a small company—and in the same vein as most media companies in the consumer tech space—we are limited in our ability to investigate the products and/or services provided by sponsors given the manpower and resources required. In light of this, consider the sponsor of any newsletter in the same way you see banner ads on any of the websites you visit - they provide funds that allow us to continue to provide you with Apple news and rumors each week.