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Do Conservatives Need All Their Own Companies?
Last night, the CEO of Expensify sent out an email to all of their ten million customers about the vital importance of voting for Biden. Their customers are… not happy.
I sent an email to the CEO of @expensify pic.twitter.com/RmdRM55m43
— Daniel M. Rothschild (@danrothschild) October 23, 2020
A number of their customers are concerned about the privacy implications of the move:
The CEO of Expensify @dbarrett sent this email endorsing Biden to all of their customers. In it he says we’re headed to civil war if Trump wins. Keep in mind he has every customer’s social, address, phone, etc. Some customers felt threatened by his email. Major trust violation. pic.twitter.com/Cjy4ol4hqB
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) October 23, 2020
Telling people to vote for Biden and a promise of a Civil War if Trump wins is not a message you want from a company that has all of your personal financial information. It’s a frightening message to receive, in fact.
Which begs the question: How much “CYA” do conservatives need to be engaged in with in regards to who is trusted with our personal data? There are plenty of annoyed Expensify customers today, but it should prompt us to wonder how safe our data is with Big Tech and companies who are completely aligned against us.
Published in General
Truth and Reconcile that.
In general, it’s orders of magnitude easier to take over and redirect an existing organization, than to build a new one from scratch.
Which is why the left does it.
Yes. Or, more accurately, they need to insist on that non-political sphere Rothschild talks about in his tweet. The Expensify CEO thought he was virtue signaling.
And in an environment where Democrats are talking about forming Truth & Reconciliation Committees to wreak political vengeance on bureaucrats and corporations that allowed, much less supported, Trump’s rise to prominence. This is Mao’s playbook. His peoples committees. Constitution? Fugitaboutit, it’s racist! Cancelled!
This is very sad. Without customers’ consent, a company has no right to use its customers’ email addresses for communications that are not related to business. Even in a sole proprietorship, customer information is not the business owner’s personal property.
In this matter, the CEO is simply an employee who has no more right to send a mass email supporting Biden than an employee in the mailroom would have a right to send a mass email supporting Trump. I wonder what would happen to the mailroom employee?
Is this an in kind donation to the democrat party?
Someone want to make a complaint to the election commission?
It may violate the banking regulations under which the company presumably operates, regulations that include limits on how the company can use the personal information of its customers.
Certainly in my country it would violate the Privacy commission.
He probably also has their credit card numbers . . .
My company uses Expensify and I got this email. I was pretty offended by the statements and arrogance. I am not a position to make any decisions as to what we apps we use.
I am guessing that with the pandemic shutting down business travel, Expensify is hurting big time. Maybe with this, this CEO will get pulled up short by his board. Unfortunately, probably not because this is a valley startup and most the VC’s in the valley probably agree with him.
Checking… oh, it’s a San Francisco based company. Yeah, that’s kind of the political attitude there.
Would Venture Capitalist Peter Thiel agree with this message? He should be watching and commenting. I am now retired, and have only donated tiny amounts to the Trump campaign. I have no job to lose, my home is paid off, and I have next to no debt. I feel sorry for all the companies who use this company for their affairs. Will they lose any customers? What alternatives exist?