This is a bad take. Trading my privacy for your convenience without my consent isn’t okay just because it’s an ‘advancement in tech’.

We who make products make the choice between respecting privacy or trying to shift privacy tolerances. I’ll go with the first every time. https://t.co/nyEt3yLza3

— Kevin Fox ? (@kfury) July 2, 2019

This is a very good response, both in actions taken, and in ownership of the response. I hope other privacy advocates take note and reward this kind of response.

Now we need to debate whether this pixel tracking stuff is ok more broadly, even when senders opt in. https://t.co/e4C7NdJNtF

— Ben Adida (@benadida) July 3, 2019

Oh damn just read this post and it is ?. I am adding this to my must-read list for folks who want to get into product management. https://t.co/sJsL0RNtYP

— Sara Mauskopf (@sm) July 3, 2019

This VC (@zck) uses a stat from a survey about privacy preferences to justify *automatically violating the privacy* of people who haven't agreed to have their privacy violated. Classy. https://t.co/ENdutfuTMr

— Mike Davidson (@mikeindustries) July 2, 2019

Truly impressed by the thoughtful & timely response here. It gives me hope that the tech industry can support each other rather than tear each other down.

Everyone won’t get everything right every time. What’s most important is respectfully calling it out, learning, and acting. https://t.co/X3xFPoOgvQ

— Jared Erondu (@erondu) July 4, 2019

In addition to the application for stalkers & predators, it also violates another online safety rule: don't announce to the public (or strangers) that you're away from home. https://t.co/9F21ut9wg3

— (((Liora))) (@liora_) July 2, 2019

The Superhuman team is already making changes to address the recent privacy concerns that emerged in the last few days around read statuses.

That was fast. https://t.co/gBkCLoE3By

— Todd Goldberg ? (@toddg777) July 3, 2019

It’s 2019 and startups with millions of dollars in funding are just now realizing they must consider negative externalities. https://t.co/TFLXIPEAR6

— Derek Powazek ? (@fraying) July 4, 2019

I appreciate Superhuman’s changes, but the problem is recipients don’t know they’re tracked, and it’s still not going to warn them https://t.co/GPfUYVkBMs

— Josh Constine (@JoshConstine) July 3, 2019

Superhuman is super sorryhttps://t.co/ftHszSTru5

— Dieter Bohn (@backlon) July 3, 2019

Judge software not by whether it has bugs, but how quickly and effectively its makers respond to them https://t.co/gvNcVnfGI8

— Gina Trapani ?️‍? (@ginatrapani) July 3, 2019

Y’all know this happens every time you open Slack right? The admins of *every Slack group you’re in* get to see each connection and *exactly* where you are. With greater detail than superhuman.https://t.co/XIrJRfVUH0

— Ryan Shea (@ryaneshea) July 3, 2019

Just taking a wild stab in the dark here that this email start up that reveals your location every time you open an email has close to zero women in their design team.... https://t.co/X6idzc3mxS pic.twitter.com/nwz5EqROPk

— Caroline Criado Perez (@CCriadoPerez) July 3, 2019

No I am not an investor in Superhuman though I had a friendly onboarding with @rahulvohra

I’ve been a happy user - with the exception of being creeped by location-tracking in read receipts - and I’m glad for this response

— Gina Trapani ?️‍? (@ginatrapani) July 3, 2019

So. This Superhuman thing

(1) Any news is good news for em tbh. Their top of funnel has likely been great past 2 days

(2) I can understand both sides. But there's a strong correlation between the people outraged by privacy and the people that I think are dumbasses in the valley

— Delian Asparouhov (@zebulgar) July 3, 2019

very good response from @rahulvohra and @superhuman https://t.co/ELo1DM7duf

— John Lilly (@johnolilly) July 3, 2019

Beware of companies who only do the right thing when they’ve been caught. https://t.co/dni43UYiLs

— Mike Monteiro (@monteiro) July 3, 2019

If you use email read receipts, you have no basis to complain about slide deck sharing analytics - vice versa too.

— Kent Goldman (@kentgoldman) July 3, 2019

For those who thought this a “nontroversy”... https://t.co/9Cg1MtqYtq

— Robert Stephens (@rstephens) July 3, 2019

It’s a good walkback by Superhuman, but the call for the industry to come together on privacy rules cracks me up, because we’ve gotten to the point where there are now startups effectively calling for increased privacy regulation https://t.co/dR3enYieaB

— nilay patel (@reckless) July 3, 2019

it’s just so obvious that all the folks saying y’all are making a big deal out of nothing new have never had a stalker before https://t.co/CUcoWduRuA

— kamilah taylor ⚡️ (@kamilah) July 3, 2019

Yes this comes after a scathing critique by @mikeindustries, but it’s still nice to see a company listen and change course if necessary https://t.co/BoecIQAHvM

— Dan Nguyen (@dancow) July 3, 2019

2/ I know I have come under fire for being quiet. I had to take the time to think deeply and from first principles. I hope our community will understand that.

— Rahul Vohra (@rahulvohra) July 3, 2019

This is how it’s supposed to work! When your influence and impact grows, your obligations and responsibilities do too. An Uber running a 5-car MVP does not get or deserve the scrutiny of a $50-billon Uber. But SV has a tendency to go tribal and just think “they’re out to get us!” https://t.co/7X6qD5gCQ7

— DHH (@dhh) July 3, 2019

4/ It reminds me of @facebook’s playbook: steal peoples’ privacy, get caught, then apologize and pull back, but only partially.

— Walt Mossberg (@waltmossberg) July 3, 2019

as for why read receipts exist at all, the company's blog explains that customers that pay this much for an email client demand it, which is what I said yesterday https://t.co/F1AyTKrXfV pic.twitter.com/cVyBmBwatl

— dan seifert (@dcseifert) July 3, 2019

Sadly “we did not imagine the potential for misuse” is often more accurately “we did not even attempt to imagine the potential for misuse” or “we intentionally did not attempt to imagine the potential for misuse” https://t.co/Inc4L9PbX7

— Layton Duncan (@PolarBearFarm) July 4, 2019

Hard to believe they launched this product in the current environment without considering the consequences of this kind of tracking, invasiveness and lack of transparency. https://t.co/biXcrvOv9k

— John S. Wilson (@JohnWilson) July 3, 2019

4/ We are making some big changes to @Superhuman. We are:

• removing location tracking
• deleting location data
• turning read statuses off by default
• building an option to disable remote images

Please see https://t.co/T5YekM2iyM

I've written this in detail there ?

— Rahul Vohra (@rahulvohra) July 3, 2019

Bravo on listening and taking decisive action ???

— Alex Konrad (@alexrkonrad) July 3, 2019

99% of the arguments I’ve heard in defense of Superhuman’s 1-on-1 location tracking is “but everybody does it!”

Thats a terrible argument by itself and a fallacious one at that, but it’s also not true. Eg Facebook doesn’t allow you to track the location of someone you message.

— Susan Fowler (@susanthesquark) July 3, 2019

4⃣ Because I trust @rahulvohra to continue designing a product that takes all sorts of feedback into accounthttps://t.co/NH7aWCdPi9 https://t.co/Td5EvmGhPt

— ??‍?☕️⛰ (@hunterwalk) July 3, 2019

2/ The blog by CEO @rahulvohra admits that the recipient of a @Superhuman email can’t opt out of being tracked by emails sent from his product. He admits that the industry needs a solution to this. One good move might be to remove read tracking altogether from Superhuman.

— Walt Mossberg (@waltmossberg) July 3, 2019

...or maybe they turn on startups when they first see ethical issues they don't want to propagate? This feels like progress towards a world where people actually care about the impact of tech and are starting to understand the Facebook style grift that broadly erodes culture? https://t.co/LoFUKXfJew

— Jesse von Doom (@jessevondoom) July 3, 2019

Yes, email marketing products allow companies to do this, but that’s for companies, not individuals. I expect emails from PR people to have tracking, so I leave them unopened. I don’t expect that the email I get from a VC or a writer or a friend will be tracking my location.

— Susan Fowler (@susanthesquark) July 3, 2019

The @Superhuman tempest-in-a-teapot is the entire 'privacy' debate in microcosm: comically ferocious, mysteriously capricious (why now? why them?), and largely futile (HTML in email isn't going away, neither are geo IP lookups).

— Antonio García Martínez (@antoniogm) July 3, 2019

Great post by @mikeindustries about the ethics of Superhuman, an email service that compiles "a running log of every single time you have opened my email, including your location when you opened it" w/o opt-in by the recipient. https://t.co/zOUbGw7PGW

— kottke.org (@kottke) July 3, 2019

Superhuman will disable read receipts by default and more importantly, remove the location tracking entirely, the latter of which never made any sense. https://t.co/lylRaTCdgZ

— dan seifert (@dcseifert) July 3, 2019

At first I was like "Read receipts are omnipresent and every marketing email has tracking pixels", then @mikeindustries's post was so well thought out and articulate it made me reconsider, and this is a good response. All of it was pretty reasonable. https://t.co/3l0FzWaryY

— Majd Taby (@jtaby) July 3, 2019

@Superhuman fwiw, I'd remain a happy subscriber even if you disabled or modified tracking. It's not something I value and think you'd earn trust for privacy-forward stance over time. https://t.co/uwSV17DxUg

— ??‍?☕️⛰ (@hunterwalk) July 2, 2019

Notably, this response is far more measured and reasonable than many responses from investors — including investors who have not (apparently) invested in the company? Good advice is helping you solve a problem, not denying something is a problem. @mikeindustries deserves thanks.

— Anil Dash ? (@anildash) July 3, 2019

Okay, here's how you spot people using the @Superhuman e-mail client and do things with them in Apple Mail. I have got this working and have discovered which of my contacts are currently using it. That by itself was *extremely* interesting!

— Tom Coates (@tomcoates) July 2, 2019

I personally find tracking pixels pretty obnoxious (and asked Rahul to make it optional awhile back, which he did). I changed one of my accounts on SH, and forgot to do the other one.

I do think that the point about white males caring less about this is a good one.

— John Lilly (@johnolilly) July 3, 2019

Rahul being a superhuman ? https://t.co/iGOmkBAYcN

— Greg Isenberg (@gregisenberg) July 3, 2019

This is a pretty good response. Kudos for taking the time to get it right & mention specific, concrete fixes. Minor points off for apologizing for how people “feel”, vs introducing a risk. https://t.co/AtIpeVrIAO

— Anil Dash ? (@anildash) July 3, 2019

I am a big fan of @mikeindustries and @rahulvohra and I watched with interest in the *reaction* to the “read receipt” issue.

It was not a discussion about a feature but of developing a POV in product development early.

Let’s put the pitchforks away.

— Micah Baldwin (@micah) July 4, 2019

this is a very thoughtful and measured response

— rat king (@MikeIsaac) July 3, 2019

Fun. Superhuman has now completely removed the paragraph I referenced from its Privacy Policy about how they use tracking technology. I saved the page locally this weekend in case there were changes. Here's the screenshot: https://t.co/O4q2sWWoKE pic.twitter.com/apW0LOdbJo

— Mike Davidson (@mikeindustries) July 2, 2019

This statement defines 2010s tech: “When we built Superhuman, we focused only on the needs of our customers. We did not consider potential bad actors.” https://t.co/hMEbMYKPZV

— Josh Constine (@JoshConstine) July 3, 2019

A good privacy law would be a boon to a startup like Superhuman:
- They wouldn’t have wandered into this mess, since the rules would just be written down
- They wouldn’t have to worry about a shadier competitor just doing the bad thing anyway
- Limits breed creativity

— nilay patel (@reckless) July 3, 2019

3/ Instead, he uses the “everybody else does it” excuse and lists a few really obscure products. And he adds the “power user” excuse and contends, in effect, that these people have a right to optionally spy on everyone else. This episode is another reason for federal regulation.

— Walt Mossberg (@waltmossberg) July 3, 2019

This is a well written, important post about how companies can bake in unethical behavior from the start. It also criticizes the ⁦@nytimes⁩, where I first read about ⁦@Superhuman⁩, but saw nothing this good about its privacy theft policy. https://t.co/KGx9wmtfck

— Walt Mossberg (@waltmossberg) July 3, 2019

Move fast and fix things. https://t.co/KODj9My779

— Azeem Azhar (@azeem) July 4, 2019

3/ I am so very sorry for how our read status feature made folks feel. We did not imagine the potential for misuse. Now we are learning and changing.

— Rahul Vohra (@rahulvohra) July 3, 2019

Bravo, @rahulvohra - the right choice (and really, the only choice) https://t.co/zHHCXQz52j

— Martin SFP Bryant (@MartinSFP) July 3, 2019

Superhuman will make some changes. but says it will keep tracking read receipts without permission because its competitors are doing it. Such leadership! https://t.co/wdmjpv8SI9

— Vindu Goel (@vindugoel) July 4, 2019

You can bet that the dominant mail platforms will be on the lookout for this kind of crap. https://t.co/9LGLdxjJmP

— Rakesh Agrawal (@rakeshlobster) July 4, 2019

My analysis of @Superhuman is that if you use it or other email pixel-tracking (especially for personal use) you’re probably not the kind of person I’d invite over for dinner https://t.co/AcaTtLWXSu

— Tara Vancil (@taravancil) July 3, 2019

Or "we did not make any effort to look at the potential for misuse" or "we did not involve anyone who could imagine what misuse would look like for people with less power" https://t.co/HGfSG7IsMS

— Ellen K. Pao (@ekp) July 3, 2019

I think one of the reasons almost every person who has attempted to defend Superhuman is a man is that many men don’t think about how often creepy behavior against women occurs in the workplace. Often over email. https://t.co/JrIBFQrOk3

— Mike Davidson (@mikeindustries) July 3, 2019

1/ hello! it's been an intense few days. The @Superhuman team and I have been trying to absorb all the feedback and criticism as best we can ?

— Rahul Vohra (@rahulvohra) July 3, 2019

1/ This is a good *first* step. Better than doing nothing. But it’s not enough. I read the full blog post. It makes no mention of disabling tracking how *often* the recipient opens the email. It’s also full of the rationalization that secret tracking is ok in “business” software. https://t.co/c0PbCRLgdp

— Walt Mossberg (@waltmossberg) July 3, 2019

Superhuman is an email surveillance app that encourages its users to spy on friends and co-workers without their consent. Why the ethics of this matter and what it says about Superhuman as a company. New post on Mike Industries: https://t.co/97LPwhWI7Z

— Mike Davidson (@mikeindustries) July 2, 2019

I will never avoid the tracking pixels in your emails. I WANT you to know that I opened it and am not responding. Come at me https://t.co/x1LNQW0BN1

— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) July 2, 2019

Looks like the overarching narrative around Superhuman will be "they apologized well," but it doesn't change that today's email clients fundamentally allow users to be tracked without their permission — or even an easy opt-out.

— Sean Hollister (@StarFire2258) July 3, 2019

Superhuman says it will disable email read receipts by default after privacy controversy https://t.co/FfVLW7n6Ej pic.twitter.com/xJXJa4gI0w

— The Verge (@verge) July 3, 2019

This statement just adds more fuel to my desire for some company to hire me as their Czar of Common Sense. https://t.co/7OfKC4mswm

— Justin Williams (@justin) July 4, 2019

Superhuman says it will disable email read receipts by default after privacy controversyhttps://t.co/7lZz1Qe5oi

via @verge

— Miguel Angel Martin (@ma_martin) July 4, 2019

"Embedding tracking pixels in your emails so that you can tell whether or not someone is ignoring you is creepy and gross, so don’t do it." https://t.co/myTDmdjlWo

— Zack Whittaker (@zackwhittaker) July 3, 2019

"People must be allowed to have a life outside of email." https://t.co/J2218qjzpW

— Motherboard (@motherboard) July 3, 2019

Email tracking is one of the most disrespectful, creepiest things you can possibly do https://t.co/tfSyLPTZHk

— Jason Koebler (@jason_koebler) July 3, 2019

Email Tracking Is Creepy and Invasive and No One Should Do It https://t.co/QEkIvH0g7q pic.twitter.com/JqyD0dY2PH

— Rich Tehrani (@rtehrani) July 3, 2019

A new, $30-per-month email service allows email senders to track whether their emails have been opened, the physical location where they were opened, and how many times they were opened. https://t.co/FU9KRBaZ3b

— VICE (@VICE) July 3, 2019

Sharing : Superhuman removes email location logging, will turn read receipts off by default : https://t.co/uXNNcXGHRS

— anantshri (@anantshri) July 4, 2019

And now salesforce ? Zendesk ? https://t.co/Nr3szMnml6

— Ouriel Ohayon (@OurielOhayon) July 4, 2019

Superhuman removes email location logging, will turn read receipts off by default https://t.co/9zFVdIus3z

— Lance Ulanoff (@LanceUlanoff) July 4, 2019

픽셀을 다운로드시켜 수신확인 위치 확인하는 이메일 행태가 도마 위에 https://t.co/7aXp6hAAT2

— editoy (@editoy) July 5, 2019

.@StarFire2258 for @verge: "@Superhuman will stop tracking location, will delete existing location information, and will turn off read receipts by default. 'I have come to understand that there are indeed nightmare scenarios involving location tracking'" https://t.co/CrJiPrIeqP

— Yale Privacy Lab (@YalePrivacyLab) July 4, 2019

Motherboard Email Tracking Is Creepy and Invasive and No One Should Do It: The rise of email "tracking pixels" is a dystopian nightmare that shows a complete lack of empathy for the person you're talking to. https://t.co/F0GuKoLsgy #email #superhuman Via @motherboard pic.twitter.com/GhCYLl3PfQ

— Bradley Jon Eaglefeather (@bjeaglefeather) July 5, 2019