Disqus
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Internet, social networking service |
| Founded | October 30, 2007 in United States |
| Founder | Daniel Ha, Jason Yan |
| Fate | Acquired by Zeta Global (2017) |
| Headquarters | San Francisco , United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Blog comment hosting service, social media integration, user account management, spam filtering, moderation, analytics, email alerts, mobile commenting support |
| Owner | Zeta Global |
| Parent | Zeta Global |
| Website | disqus |
Disqus () is a U.S.-based blog comment hosting service designed for websites and online communities that utilize a connected platform. Its offerings encompass social media integration, user account management, spam filtering and moderation functionalities, analytics, email alerts, and support for mobile commenting. Established in 2007 by Daniel Ha and Jason Yan as part of the Y Combinator accelerator program, Disqus caters to a worldwide audience.
History
The creation of Disqus dates back to the summer of 2007 when Daniel Ha and Jason Yan, then students at the University of California, Davis, developed the service. It officially launched on October 30, 2007. In early 2011, the company obtained $10 million in investment from North Bridge Venture Partners and Union Square Ventures. By March of that year, Disqus was powering three-quarters of websites that employed third-party comment systems. On December 5, 2017, Zeta Global acquired Disqus for an undisclosed amount, with assurances that operations would proceed unchanged under the new ownership.
Business model
Disqus follows a freemium approach funded primarily through advertising. While it remains free for commenters and smaller sites, advertisements are displayed on the platform. Users have the option to pay fees to eliminate ads and unlock extra features. In November 2010, Disqus introduced three premium add-on bundles for websites; by July 2012, this offering was streamlined to two packages: a VIP plan and a single-sign-on package priced at $99 per month. Beginning in March 2013, these premium options were gradually discontinued. On January 4, 2017, Disqus announced a relaunch of premium packages set for March deployment, noting that over 95% of sites—mainly personal blogs and non-commercial platforms—would not be impacted by these updates.
Language support
In 2011, Disqus supported more than sixty languages; however, following an update in 2012, this number decreased to seven. Although submissions for new language support remained open, only one additional language was incorporated by 2013, raising the total to eight. By 2017, through crowd-sourced translation efforts facilitated by Transifex, Disqus was available in 36 languages including Spanish, French, Japanese, and Chinese.
Criticism, privacy, and security concerns
Privacy issues have been raised due to Disqus delivering content via third-party JavaScript widgets that monitor user behavior across all sites utilizing its system. The data gathered includes pseudonymous metrics such as IP addresses, browser information, referring URLs, and exit links. Although classified as "Non-Personally Identifiable Information," the aggregated data can potentially be used to identify users.
Disqus has been criticized for publicly revealing users’ full commenting histories along with linked blogs on profile pages; subsequently, an option to keep profiles private was introduced. Before 2014, users could follow others without any control over who followed them back, which led to instances of harassment. In the event of a Disqus shutdown, millions of comments hosted externally would be lost; nonetheless, site owners have the ability to export comments in XML format for transfer purposes.
In September 2014, Disqus revised its privacy policy to incorporate anonymous interest data aimed at enhancing content personalization and advertising targeting. Additionally, a third-party tool enables searching all comments by username since the official Disqus website only loads comments incrementally during scrolling.
2013 security incident
In 2013, the Swedish collective Researchgruppen gained unauthorized access to numerous anonymous Disqus user identities through the application programming interface (API). Partnering with the Bonnier-owned tabloid Expressen, they confronted individuals at their residences over comments deemed racist, misogynistic, and offensive. Researchgruppen's database reportedly held millions of Disqus comments worldwide susceptible to de-anonymization. This event prompted Disqus to enhance its platform security. In March 2014, the investigative efforts by Expressen and Researchgruppen were recognized with the Guldspaden journalism award.
October 2017 data breach
Disqus revealed on October 6, 2017, that a database snapshot from 2012 had been compromised, impacting approximately 17.5 million users. The leaked information contained email addresses, usernames, and registration dates spanning from 2007 to 2012. Roughly one-third of these accounts had passwords protected by salted and hashed SHA-1 encryption. This breach underscored the critical need for stringent security protocols in safeguarding user information.
Comment deletion functionality issues
Previously, removing a comment on Disqus merely "anonymized" it by replacing the author's name with Guest, while leaving the comment content intact. Users were required to either flag the comment, reach out to moderators, or manually erase the text before deletion.
In April 2015, Disqus enhanced its Delete feature to ensure comments were completely removed from the platform.
Affiliate links and external scripts
Disqus automatically appends affiliate referral codes to hyperlinks and transforms plain text URLs into clickable affiliate links to generate revenue; users have the option to disable this feature. Furthermore, Disqus embeds third-party advertising scripts into websites, which has raised concerns regarding security.
GDPR non-compliance
In 2021, Norway’s Data Protection Authority announced intentions to impose a €2.5 million fine on Disqus for breaching European GDPR rules by collecting and distributing user data to advertisers without securing appropriate consent from website owners and visitors.