In today’s fast paced, digitally globalized, beautifully and intrusively interconnected world, there seems to be an app for everything. Starting from Instagram and Duolingo to Tinder and Venmo, our world has become mutual and collaborative. One such app, loved by many procrastinators, memorizers, and students and teachers alike is online study tool Quizlet. This flashcard maker has gotten a lot of us through our middle and high school years and some through college and maybe even grad school.
With 50 million users from 130 countries, it’s safe to say Quizlet is trusted by many. However, as a Quizlet fanatic myself, I have to ask, just how trustworthy is this site? And after reading the privacy policy, I must say, it’s pretty untrustworthy:
When you go to the ever-glorious “quizlet.com” site for the first time and open an account, the app requires you to provide your name, email address and date of birth. Those who wish to purchase Quizlet Plus or Quizlet Go are in addition required to provide their credit card information and billing address. Quizlet also sends its subscribed users surveys in order to obtain user feedback. This feature is voluntary, and users can choose to opt out. The app also contains a “Child Account” feature for users under 16 that requires parent’s email and consent as well as the child’s date of birth and email address. The parent’s consent requires parents to affirm that Quizlet is allowed to use the child’s personal information. The app’s privacy policy lays out everything Quizlet does with this collected information.
The privacy policy, which can be amended at any time by Quizlet, begins with the company telling what information it automatically collects from its users. Some of this information includes what type of device its users use to log into their accounts, IP addresses, study patterns, language preferences, time zones and browser types. It also collects information from Facebook Connect and Google Login, which are third party features that can be used for quick log in or sign up as opposed to manual entry of information on Quizlet’s site.
The policy then continues to state how the company uses this information it collects: its used for personalizing its users’ experience (if you tend to study a lot of science flashcards, more will be recommended for you), improving service, providing ads, conducting surveys or other assistance requests, preventing crimes or other safety concerns, collecting fees and for other marketing purposes.
Moreover, the company also stipulates that it is within its rights to provide third party services with its users’ IP addresses, information about other apps on their phones, analytics regarding time spent on the apps, ad links followed, cards studied and other activity information. However, it also says that the privacy policy does not apply to these third party services and whatever these services do with the information Quizlet gives them, Quizlet is not responsible for. This is incredibly concerning, and the fact that this important and telling information comes towards the middle of the policy as opposed to being the first thing users read is disappointing and revealing of the company’s secretive motives. It does, however, go on to state that third party services are “bound by confidentiality agreements,” although it doesn’t state what exactly is in this agreement.
As more apps emerge and with them come lengthy, confusing and inexplicit privacy policies, we must be sure to read what these apps require of us and what we are allowing them to do with our information. Now, magnificent Quizlet isn’t as invasive as other apps tend to be, especially social media sites which have a lot more users, require a lot more personal information and simply have more things to collect from their users. For instance, mega popular and controversial app, Facebook, has recently come under fire for selling user private information to Cambridge Analytica. The company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, appeared before congress, and according to this New York Times article, he did not admit that the company chose not to inform its users that their information was being harvested, but said “the company made a mistake in not informing users.”
This trend of unmindful users and deceptive companies is creating an intrusive media experience. To see just how much people don’t know what’s being collected from them, I interviewed a fellow Quizlet fanatic asking what he already knows and how the truth makes him feel:
As Franklin said, if these companies were to make their privacy policies shorter, comprehensible and concise, users would take the time to read them and be more informed about where their information is headed. Now, knowing all this about Quizlet’s use of my information, I’m about to go delete some private info I may have on there and also read like 10 privacy policies.