RapLeaf

RapLeaf

Company type	Private
Industry	Marketing data, Software
Founded	March 1, 2005 (2005-03-01) in San Francisco, United States
Founder	Auren Hoffman, Manish Shah
Fate	Acquired by TowerData
Headquarters	Chicago , United States
Key people	Phil Davis (CEO from 2012), Auren Hoffman (founder)
Products	Meta-reputation system, Upscoop, LiveRamp (data onboarding)
Parent	TowerData (from 2013)

RapLeaf was a marketing data and software firm based in the United States, which was acquired by the email data provider TowerData in 2013.

Company

Established in March 2005 in San Francisco by Auren Hoffman and Manish Shah, RapLeaf secured approximately $1 million in seed funding during May 2006. This round was led by Founders Fund and included angel investors such as Peter Thiel and Ron Conway. A subsequent financing round took place in June 2007, with participation from Founders Fund, Rembrandt Venture Partners, and Conway.

The company’s first offering was a meta-reputation system that allowed consumers to generate reviews and ratings of transactions, which were then shared across various e-commerce platforms. In January 2007, RapLeaf introduced Upscoop, a tool designed to help users manage their contacts across multiple social networks using email addresses.

In 2011, RapLeaf launched a data onboarding division named LiveRamp, which later spun off as an independent entity. LiveRamp was acquired by Acxiom in 2014 for $310 million.

By 2012, RapLeaf redirected its business towards providing segmented data linked to email addresses to assist marketers in delivering personalized messaging. That year, the company moved its headquarters from San Francisco to Chicago, appointing Phil Davis as CEO to replace Hoffman.

In 2013, TowerData acquired RapLeaf.

Controversy and backlash

On May 15, 2006, eBay removed auction listings that contained links to RapLeaf due to breaches of its terms of use. In August 2007, Upscoop—a subsidiary of RapLeaf—sent emails to entire contact lists submitted by users, which led to public criticism and a formal apology from the company.

In July 2008, RapLeaf modified its platform to limit email address searches so that users could only view their own reputations along with associated social and business profiles. This update drew immediate negative reactions from businesses and individuals who depended on RapLeaf for reputation tracking and verification purposes.

An October 2010 Wall Street Journal article revealed that RapLeaf had been transmitting personally identifiable information, including IDs from Facebook and MySpace. The company admitted the mistake and halted this practice. Following this disclosure, Facebook banned RapLeaf from scraping its data, prompting the deletion of all collected Facebook IDs by the company.

A 2011 investigation exposed RapLeaf’s capacity to deduce consumer preferences of employees at prominent corporations. From 2007 through 2013, RapLeaf encountered significant criticism over its practices of gathering and selling personal information to advertisers. CEO Auren Hoffman became a central figure of scrutiny regarding the firm’s privacy policies and business approach.

Further inquiries uncovered that RapLeaf shared identifying information with at least twelve companies, violating the terms of service of Facebook and MySpace. In response, Facebook restricted RapLeaf’s data access. When confronted by media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal and CNet, RapLeaf quietly updated its privacy policies.

CNNMoney characterized RapLeaf as "selling your identity," while TechCrunch described its data collection techniques as "creepy." After expanding into additional markets under the LiveRamp brand, the original RapLeaf business was spun off and sold to TowerData in 2013.

See also

• Lexis Nexis