NovaLauncher: Today marks 1 year since our announcement that we've joined the Branch and Sesame teams! 🎉 That also means it has been 1 year since we promised your data would be safe...
Nova Launcher (@NovaLauncher)
It definitely feels weird, but it could also just be a reaction to the significant criticisms at the time of the purchase and change of ownership.
Integrity company here. It's been a year since we partnered with known mobster Two Face and we promised you that he would have no influence over our business other than as a financier and we've kept that promise! As you can see his racketeering has been kept completely independent of our day to day activities. You can trust us and Two Face that we will be allowed to be completely independent and there is no tom foolery going around behind the scenes.
Surely you mean Tegrity Farms?
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There's a news/politics website in my country that had radio ads, billboards and everything with a slogan "Nobody dictates us what we should write about."
This tweet reminds me of that and doesn't really fill me with trust either.
BTW, the mentioned website is described as a "disinformation medium" on Wikipedia.
I mean, their message is a little weird, but so is the scaremongering that's been going on against them ever since they changed ownership. From comments on the Reddit post, Branch is actually integrated into Google apps, Samsung Launcher, and a ton of other stuff and nobody really blinks an eye at that.
There literally is no evidence they do anything unseemly with peoples' data, yet the scaremongering persists, including a lot right here in this thread. What exactly are they supposed to say other than to emphasize this fact? Anyone who would distrust them based on this post was already definitely inclined to distrust them.
I see it more as a jab at the insane scaremongering when they sold.
Yeah sure, some concerns are justified in that situation, alright. But it's not like you need to instantly drop something the moment this happens, more so because half the alternatives people recommend have trackers the very company that bought nova runs.
"Insane scaremongering?" What an incredibly ignorant and biased characterization
Is it? Don't get me wrong, it's completely understandable to be concerned, disappointed, annoyed or distrustful of such a buyout. Entirely understandable.
But at the same time, immediately coming to the conclusion that all data is now being hoovered up isn't helping anybody. Because if nothing else, it destroys nuance. If you assume the moment an ad company is involved that all data is being gathered, then you lack the ability to make any further distinction. This would also mean that nobody could ever create a more ethical ad company, as users would still immediately assume they're gathering all data, and hence be no better than any of the other companies. This in turn removes any motivation to ever even try this.
Likewise, and more relevant in this case, if users immediately assume the worst has already happened, then no company can ever try to sell to another company in a more responsible manner, as again the perceived result is the same, so there's no incentive to do so.
What actually happened:
From the perspective of the end user, other than the chances of more data being gathered in the future going up a little bit (and apparently not even all that much given that it's been one year now), nothing has changed. 🤷
That's what I mean: You cannot always immediately assume the worst will happen right now this very moment. Scaremongering precludes any sensible form of discussion or improvement to a situation, as one side has already decided that it's all a lost cause anyways.
Now, should the new owners start gathering more data, then we can all toss Nova into the bin. And then say "Okay it took far longer than expected, but fuck ad-company buyouts!". But so far that hasn't happened, and hey, if anything it seems Nova found some buyers who don't just trash the product they bought for some quick bucks.
Indeed, it does seem like this.
