Raindrop.io Questions

Started by Ken on 9/8/2023
Ken 9/8/2023 5:08 pm
I mentioned in a previous thread that I was looking for possible Pocket replacements to keep track of bookmarks. Raindrop.io gets mentioned frequently, but there were also some posts about data privacy. I tried to research it a bit more and all I was able to learn is that the author is based in Kazakhstan, not Russia. Does anybody know more about their data privacy and security policies?

Thanks,

--Ken
satis 9/9/2023 2:51 am
Developer Rustem Mussabekov lives in St. Petersburg, Russia.

https://numericcitizen.me/when-war-in-ukraine-influences-my-application-choices/

As far as terms of service goes:

Terms may be changed any time at their discretion, without notice to you.
Your account can be deleted without prior notice and without a reason.
Instead of asking directly, this Service will assume your consent merely from your usage.
You must provide your legal name, pseudonyms are not allowed.
Third-party cookies are used for statistics.
We transfer information about you if Raindrop.io is acquired by or merged with another company.
Ken 9/9/2023 10:05 pm
satis wrote:
Developer Rustem Mussabekov lives in St. Petersburg, Russia.

https://numericcitizen.me/when-war-in-ukraine-influences-my-application-choices/

As far as terms of service goes:

Terms may be changed any time at their discretion, without notice to
you.
Your account can be deleted without prior notice and without a reason.
Instead of asking directly, this Service will assume your consent merely
from your usage.
You must provide your legal name, pseudonyms are not allowed.
Third-party cookies are used for statistics.
We transfer information about you if Raindrop.io is acquired by or
merged with another company.

Interesting, as I believe that Crunchbase had him living in Kazakhstan. In either event, the terms that you have quoted are not exactly what I wanted to see, so that is certainly giving me pause.

--Ken
Lucas 9/10/2023 4:40 pm
I also considered Raindrop as a Pocket replacement and found myself unconvinced. For now, I am just using Zotero to reliably keep copies of articles in long-term storage. Meanwhile, I put things I want to read soon in Readwise Reader.

(Other potential options on my list include Omnivore, OneNote, InfoQube clipper, and RemNote Clipper.)
satis 9/11/2023 1:15 am
References to Russia on Mussabekov's LinkedIn page (reported in the URL I posted, dated 16 months ago) appear to have been scrubbed, but remnants seem to exist from a DuckDuckGo webpage snapshot:

https://imgur.com/a/pwNnBP2

Some of the Terms of Service seem okay to me (transfering info to an acquiring company, implied consent by use), some seem heavy-handed (account deletion without notice or reason), but I just wanted to point out everything worth considering. They had a problem a couple of years ago when a user abused the unlimited saves ability and saved 1.5 million items in three days and clogged up the service for everyone - I could see them deleting the account of someone who did something similar.
Donovan 9/17/2023 4:35 am


Lucas wrote:
Meanwhile, I put things I want to read
soon in Readwise Reader.

Hmmm…Readwise Reader is interesting. I keep tons of things in html files using SingleFile, the browser extension on my laptop and iOS app on iPad. SingleFile creates an amazingly small file with all elements from a webpage in a single, self-contained, html file which can be read by anything that accepts html. My question — can you upload an html file to Readwise Reader? If so, I’d use it in a minute.