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Evernote Revisits Privacy Policy Change in Response to Feedback


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6 minutes ago, DTLow said:

As per the announcement below, an "encryption at rest" process is being implemented i.e. our data will be encrypted on the servers.  

However my impression the users in this discussion are demanding client side encryption

https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2016/09/13/evernotes-future-cloud/

yes, and that will be a strong barrier to hacks, but EN servers have the power to decrypt to OCR and return search indexes/results, but it will only be when we add new data or change data. 

@MRJ, the servers still have to be able to decrypt or else the web service would have to go away, and that is a key feature of the service. The web browser itself obviously isn't going to do the decryption.

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1 minute ago, mz123 said:

Now, OCR could not take place on the server, obviously. I have capable OCR within other apps on my desktop. I'm sure Evernote can solve this part of the problem easily by doing OCR locally. Sure, there are some tradeoffs. But again, these are minimal, and likely tradeoffs that users of Evernote would gladly accept. 

You are making a lot of assumptions here, and as I said before, Evernote used to do all OCR locally and it was a train wreck due to the number of permutations of video cards, video drivers, and operating systems. "Easily" is easy to type, and "minimal" is also easy to type when you don't understand or acknowledge how much of the Evernote service is reliant on the servers doing the heavy lifting for many of the clients, especially those on iOS, Android, and the web, not to mention the effect it has on bandwidth usage.

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Quite a number of users seem to have done what I did. Trusting Evernote.  Until  this bomb went off.  This really rocked the boat for me.

My previous quibbles with hindsight were actually ridiculous. In a nutshell, no more than "my God, this software cries out for speedy improvement, equal appearance and functions in supported OS,convenience  features added, MS office formatted docs displayed, export to pdf format etc. Do something about the memory hog problem under Windows.  

Not even the price increase got me annoyed,  good service costs. Staff should be paid decently, if anything, more of them should be recruited .  Machine recognition of words, finding contextual notes, good, actually outstanding. This company was to my mind in its way ahead of the times ,so my thinking was.

Moving to Google servers, OK, with millions every year joining and with an allowance of 10 GB per month extra payload for Premium and more for Business users it seemed completely logical to anticipate problem and relegate this part of the business to specialist providers. After all, Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others make a good deal of their money by providing exactly  this type of service. High security standards, servers all over, redundant machinery. Above all,  expert staff. Could not be much better. 

Then this bomb went off and the house looks fairly damaged to me now.

In fact, the statement by the CEO does not read to me as though there is a person who is accepting personal  responsibility for an intended breach of privacy which would have finished the company in no time whatever. The really stupid and haha thing is whoever underrated the intelligence of a good deal of the users (paying for his income) is in for a surprise. The one thing where the machine information age really helps is the way how one on can catch up on facts one is unaware of up to the moment of the incident. 

The nasty fact is that Evernote, not even for Business clients, has never provided adequate shield of privacy at all. At no time. Neither is Evernote listed as member of the US EU privacy shield (follow-up to SafeHarbor) nor any other accepted standard. They made out their own model, but - as they say here - on can put anything on paper.  

Of course that does not mean that such companies make no efforts, it is just not good enough for sensitive, personal data stored. At least not for me.

Well, dear Elephant CEO, you will have a few days/months of indigestion ahead of you.  Come forward now  and let us have one full clear complete statement.  Do not play for time.

 

 

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1 hour ago, jefito said:

Now you're wanting Evernote to actually *modify* your notes? That's going to go over well...

In exchange for them using my data to "improve my experience", I might be fine with that. And it's a bit alarmist to call adding some metadata *modifying*.

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21 hours ago, JohnLongney said:

Trusting Evernote.  Until  this bomb went off.  This really rocked the boat for me.

I get upset about bombs going off; people get hurt and killed

Aside from all the FUD, I can't get too disturbed by this.
I could have opted opt of the program, but its not even necessary - opt out will be the default

 

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6 minutes ago, EdH said:

You are making a lot of assumptions here, and as I said before, Evernote used to do all OCR locally and it was a train wreck due to the number of permutations of video cards, video drivers, and operating systems. "Easily" is easy to type, and "minimal" is also easy to type when you don't understand or acknowledge how much of the Evernote service is reliant on the servers doing the heavy lifting for many of the clients, especially those on iOS, Android, and the web, not to mention the effect it has on bandwidth usage.

Video cards and drivers have nothing to do with OCR as far as I can tell. Where did you get that info?

I agree that getting this done on the client side is not "easy", but it's also not too hard. If you can expand on why you think it's hard, I'd be happy to address solutions. Remember, commercial OCR software is sold to consumers for less than $100 in one-time fees. There is nothing magical here. Yes, it's harder on mobile, but Evernote could allow for a "Do OCR only after desktop sync" flag for mobile users who don't want OCR to use their mobile battery.

 

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1 hour ago, DTLow said:

Evernote has my trust (obviously or I wouldn't be using the service)

As for your demands, I'm sure they will be given the attention they deserve.  Better start  packing up your business

I'd be interested for you to climb off your high horse and tell me why you think my post doesn't deserve their attention. Encryption has been a long sought-after feature that would be welcomed by many, and I am proposing a compromise for having my data read in exchange for improved features. Rather than insult me, why not stop shilling and have a meaningful discussion.

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4 minutes ago, mz123 said:

Video cards and drivers have nothing to do with OCR as far as I can tell. Where did you get that info?

Because to open up an image to find text, EN used the video card to render it. I am not a programmer. Do you know a better way to open an image and render it to find text without using the video driver?

 

 

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5 hours ago, huladaddy said:

tell me why you think my post doesn't deserve their attention. 

  1. Encryption has been a long requested feature, with no indication that Evernote is interested in implementing it
  2. As to "every time one of my notes is viewed by one of your employees..."
    According to the latest announcement, employees will be unaware of the note's owner
    Also, there are legal restraints against notification of some access by the 
    authorities
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3 minutes ago, EdH said:

That has already been stopped. Why is this still an issue?

 

Right. I know it has stopped. But they obviously had some AI machine learning stuff planned, and maybe in the future, if it was opt in, and if there were certain safeguards and procedures in place, and with better communication, it might be something they could do.

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2 minutes ago, DTLow said:
  1. Encryption has been a long requested feature, with no indication that Evernote is interested in implementing it
  2. As to "every time one of my notes is viewed by one of your employees..."
    I just can't see it being implemented

Maybe this disaster will be the tipping point for them to start doing things users have been asking for instead of what they think users should be asking for. They seem to be out of touch with their users. Here's to hoping that they actually start to listen.

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20 hours ago, huladaddy said:

start doing things users have been asking for instead of what they think users should be asking for. 

This discussion is "Evernote Revisits Privacy Policy Change in Response to Feedback"

Evernote listened to the feedback and made adjustments to their plans

Why are you still whining?

btw  I can get upset at "disasters", or "bombs going off"
        This has not happened here
        This is a initiative  that users can opt-in or opt-out.
       Our complaint was that opt-in was the default

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Just now, DTLow said:

This discussion is "Evernote Revisits Privacy Policy Change in Response to Feedback"

Evernote listened to the feedback and made adjustments to their plans

Yes. That's why I said in the part of my post that you chopped out:

"Maybe this disaster will be the tipping point for them to start doing things..."

And for you to suggest that Evernote deciding NOT to do something that was going to piss off their customers is somehow the same as what I said, which was to "start doing things users have been asking for" tells me you just want to argue. They're not remotely the same thing.

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2 hours ago, mz123 said:

Slideshows are rarely useful unless you're at the talk they're accompanying. This one's a case in point. You'd think after 13 years, there'd be something more substantial.

For all that, having fully encrypted data residing on the server and being able to search effectively means that you need to do the encryption locally, and ship the encrypted results back up to server, which may be onerous for some platforms. Heck, my whole notes database doesn't fit on my Android devices as it is. I am a programmer, but certainly not a security expert, and it all sounds kinda cumbersome. 

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2 hours ago, EdH said:

Because to open up an image to find text, EN used the video card to render it. I am not a programmer. Do you know a better way to open an image and render it to find text without using the video driver?

You can open up image files and process them without using the video card. They're just files on disk, after all (or blobs in a database). It's possible that they were using video card facilities to assist with the analysis, but I can't envision why that would be required. Then again, I've never look at what doing OCR takes, but I'd guess it's pretty computationally expensive.

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2 hours ago, mz123 said:

The index components are encrypted, and the server searches the encrypted index. There's a lot of detail, and this is only a brief introduction, and an older summary at that:

https://crypto.stanford.edu/~eujin/papers/secureindex/2003nov-encsearch.pdf

Now, OCR could not take place on the server, obviously. I have capable OCR within other apps on my desktop. I'm sure Evernote can solve this part of the problem easily by doing OCR locally. Sure, there are some tradeoffs. But again, these are minimal, and likely tradeoffs that users of Evernote would gladly accept. 

i am no expert, and i doubt we're going to come up with a plan evernote hasn't already considered, especially when we cannot see inside the operation.

but, i can say that i use other apps that have zero-knowledge encryption and excellent searching. in fact, one of my databases on my phone is several gigabytes and works without a hiccup. so, it can be done.

and, i also have several apps on the ipad that do excellent ocr -- one of them even does a far better job than evernote with my handwriting. so, there is no reason why it is necessary to run everything unencrypted through evernote, especially if we are talking about non-mobile devices with desktop operating systems.

my amateur opinion is that evernote could have zero-knowledge encrypted notebooks, these could be searchable, and we could have ocr. but, evernote has decided not to do it (they have clearly stated they have no plans to do it). it's a choice. it might be the best choice for the company, but it isn't such a great one for me.

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In a quite a number of articles from various magazines etc. (all dated prior to October this year) reference is made to Evernote's planned business strategies to mingle into  Siri/Cortana type of *assistance*. 

Does not sound unreasonable to me. There is certainly money in that line. Whereas improving an editor is realistically speaking money thrown away. Those old/young grumps have managed up to know. To me, the picture is somewhat clearer. 

I can still vividly recall the uproar at the time when Adobe suddenly decided to stop selling licences . It was one of the best moves this company made because the software became affordable. The 2 Adobe nights in the year the local people from Munich host are always fantastic, and great fun. A company with a sold base of managers and staff who would not want to work anywhere else.

Evernote's subscription fee does not break the bank account.  But the way things are managed and communicated does not inspire confidence. Business people here hosting client papers with EN would be in conflict with the law. Nowhere do you read "in compliance with....."

Allusions of grandeur.

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5 hours ago, huladaddy said:

In exchange for them using my data to "improve my experience", I might be fine with that. And it's a bit alarmist to call adding some metadata *modifying*.

Seriously? You think that metadata that travels around with your note isn't part of your note? You did suggest adding tags, didn't you? Maybe you're right, but I'm having a hard time believing that that would fly with other users...

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35 minutes ago, JohnLongney said:

double entry, sorry

Happens to me tooScreen Shot 2016-12-16 at 8.55.46 PM.png
You can delete posts using the Options under the note

Thanks for the link - that was a good explanation

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I don't trust Evernote anymore, they tried it once, they will try it again "just with _better_ communication". Not with me any longer. All my Notes are deleted, Apps are removed from  my Devices, Subscription is canceled already. That's what you get Evernote. *life long and prosper.

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That EN planned to let their employees read my notes (good luck with that, they are in German) has left me shocked, as most other commenters here.

But to be fair, I never thought my notes were really secure - cause I know that only client side encryption makes sure of THAT, regardless if the note-reading was legal or illegal. The ideas about indexing and encryption mentioned here are interesting, but they would require a complete rewrite of a lot of the codebase, so I don't hold my breath that this will ever happen. Encryption without server-side indexing may come, and I sincerely hope it does. But since this notes won't be regularly searchable (again, without rewriting the codebase), I don't hold my breath for this either.

The consequence of all of this has always been: I do not have sensitive information in EN or unencrypted elsewhere in the cloud. This is a PITA, but good privacy is hard. My clients (I am a therapist) need their protection, so nothing below Truecrypt et al will do for their information stored with me. No, it is not searchable, but that's life.

For all, who will leave to Google or Microsoft because of the privacy problems in EN, I do not know from which parallel universe they came in, certainly not this one.

I do not see a good alternative, which provides the complex functionality of EN which I need and has better privacy. If it emerges I might contemplate to leave (which is painful and tiresome in itself), for now I'll stick with it. EN ist just not a "remember everything" for me - I don't trust them to do this.

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Despite you finding (after the press found you, and the outcry of your users...) a way to revers what should never have been out there, you've shown us how little you care for your (paying) users and subscribers, and can give no guarantees for the future. Agree with many posters above: let's encrypt the data, so we can benefit from your software without being at risk now or in the future.

Oh, and I hope the guys at Microsoft sent you a couple of crates of champagne. Can't imagine how many new users you created for them in the past couple of days...  

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3 hours ago, KBL said:

Agree with many posters above: let's encrypt the data, so we can benefit from your software without being at risk now or in the future.  

Agreed; I encrypt  my sensitive data before uploading to the cloud

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I'm using Evernote since a few years and I'm a premium customer for two accounts - the recent announcement about the changes on the privacy policy made me rethink. I just cancelled both subscriptions because I cannot trust Evernote any more - even if I hear something like "we heard your comments" or "...revising our existing privacy policy to reaffirm this commitment". Obviously Evernote is moving into the wrong direction and has been trying to fool their customers. What have you thought what your customers would endure to still be able to use a really well-designed and well-featured product? Apparently you did a miscalculation and I hope that more and more customers will make the decision I made. Using a note-taking app is a question of trust and if there is the slightest hint that Evernote wants to get access to my data I have to quit this service. How could you ever think about taking access to our data - now I understand why there is no extensive functionality for encryption...

Good bye, Evernote!

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In light of the fall-out from the planned policy change I may be getting a tad paranoid. If so I apologise.

However I saw that the planned policy change also stated,

Quote

"In order to better personalize your Evernote experience, we may also collect information about you (such as your profession, interests, and preferences) from third parties, in accordance with applicable law. This information can help us provide you with relevant tips or suggestions for using your account, for example."

I could not find the above statement on the current policy so I assume that it is yet to be implemented. I could also not find this aspect of the policy being mentioned in the forum (but this may just be due to my poor searching skills)

So are Evernote wanting to use Evernote account information to search for personal data held by other companies to "profile" their customers?

<ParanoiaAlert> I mention this because "profession, interests, and preferences" are only examples of what they would like to collect and not the limit. Also providing "... relevant tips or suggestions for using your account" is only an example of what they would then use the data for.</ParanoiaAlert>

I know that the planned policy change has been withdrawn but does anyone know what the above policy statement, if ever implemented, would actually mean in real life?

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Sorry, you are too late. I have already ported over to a competitor and deactivated my account. 

Good for you that you admitted your faux pas and reverted. However, the policy itself is not why I quit and all is not forgiven. Truth be told, I have never kept sensitive notes in Evernote. I quit because your management team actually implemented the policy and did not have the foresight to understand how bad it was from the start.

I can't imagine the product meeting that actually came up with "well, we can let our people read people's notes" as a viable go to market strategy. That shows an amazing amount of lack of understanding of the customer needs... as evident by the blow back you are now receiving.

It also shows a lack of understanding around data security. The insider threat is a "big thing" these days and your statements about additional training and vetting are not effective remediations against this threat. It is disappointing that you thought they would be.

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Not sure if the CNET types are out to drive Evernote out of business or what, but such is the way of apps and the internet these days - so for those of us who pay for a service it's best to walk very carefully.  However, there IS a lot of trust put into your product and all the press of "missteps" and future solvency are disconcerting.  The old adage of smoke and fire more times than not, rings true...  I like and use Evernote often, so pls make us more confident that your management of it is more than just so many words.... steady the ship folks.

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A bit late to this party, but having posted a bit on the previous thread, I just want to say that I appreciate Evernote doing the right thing--without, I should point out, having yet done the wrong thing, only announced that they were going to start doing it in January. As corporate apologies, retractions, and resets go, this is actually pretty impressive. It also demonstrates that they do pay some attention to what we say here. So, glad I didn't panic and leave; I didn't even get around to opting out yet.

Speaking of which, I notice that when I look at my Personal Settings, the option "Improved Experience: Allow Evernote to use my data to improve my experience" is still there, and with the checkbox still checked. Should be gone, eh? or at least unchecked by default (= opt in)? What's up with that?

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I was planning on writing a note this weekend expressing my concern. I'm happy to see you've listened and now I do not need to write that letter. A suggestion I have is to have a small group of paid and unpaid users that you could question and get their advice from before you make policy changes in the future. Those that enjoy your service would probably be willing to provide feedback. This would hopefully reduce any potential concerns of changes in the future. The surveying could be as small or large as you want and make them agree to keep whatever those questions are confidential.  It's just a thought for you and ultimately you all are in charge. Thanks for listening. I truly was thinking of what service I was going to move to. I was not excited about that thought. Thanks again. 

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15 minutes ago, agar2a98 said:

I am very pleased that you listened to your subscribers and are reversing your decision. I therefore will also reverse my decision and renew in February.

I gather you won't be participating in the Machine Learning program.

Under the previous process - Why not simply opt-out?

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Too late as this is the second time Evernote has screwed up in a major way. I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt when I became a paying subscriber, but this latest sell-out on the part of O'Neill and his team has been the final straw. I deleted all my notes and knocked my account back to a basic subscription. I've deleted the app from the computers I had installed it on and you will see this basic account do no more than collect dust from now on.

In simpler terms, no cloud-based anything is trustworthy, and certainly not Evernote.

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20 hours ago, EdH said:

You are making a lot of assumptions here, and as I said before, Evernote used to do all OCR locally and it was a train wreck due to the number of permutations of video cards, video drivers, and operating systems. "Easily" is easy to type, and "minimal" is also easy to type when you don't understand or acknowledge how much of the Evernote service is reliant on the servers doing the heavy lifting for many of the clients, especially those on iOS, Android, and the web, not to mention the effect it has on bandwidth usage.

I use NAPS2,  a great open source pdf scanner app. You can save your scanned documents as searchable pdf  and encryption  is possible as well. The OCR is very reliable. This proves that both encryption and OCR can run smoothly at the client side.  https://www.naps2.com/

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When corporations make this kind of stupid managerial decision, there is no way to trust company again. After pair of months, and CEO seeing smoke clearing, same stupid thing is happening surely again with "new improved privacy policy" with more smoke and mirrors. So, moving along away from this non privacy respecting entity. Had good times with many years with you, but this kind of behaviour is just not acceptable. Glad that there is other alternatives and importers for them around. Good bye and trying out the OneNote!

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7 minutes ago, eric99 said:

This proves that both encryption and OCR can run smoothly at the client side.

Desktop platforms?

How about the other platforms; IOS, Web ...

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12 minutes ago, GBC said:

Am I the only one that still has that uneasy gut feeling of mistrust?

I trust, but I encrypt  my private data.  Not too worried about my grocery list

Uploading data to the cloud has always had an element of risk.  
I could use Local Notebooks, but I like syncing to my iPad 

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Count me as one Premium user  - since the beginning - who had already started removing things from Evernote.  I was on my way out.  I've decided to stay, and want to thank those who decided to make the privacy issue an opt-in choice.  I was not looking forward to moving everything out of this great program.

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On 12/15/2016 at 11:39 PM, aisu825 said:

I appreciate that Evernote quickly realized their mistake and listened to their customers in this instance. However, I would still like to see more work done on encryption features and much stronger privacy policies going forward.  Marketing focus groups and public dialog about proposed changes would greatly benefit you in the future.  This is the second debacle in the past six months.  Your company cannot keep doing this and expect people to stick around.

Truly a disappointment. Evernote the damage to your reputation is done. You  should be moving in the opposite direction and champion privacy. What were you thinking?? Just don't get it!

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I've been slowly transferring content from Evernote to an alternative which, for my needs is just as good and free. Once my premium expires I won't be renewing at the new price. Don't like the idea that had there not been a backlash regarding the privacy, what would you be doing with our content.

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8 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

 

A bit late to this party, but having posted a bit on the previous thread, I just want to say that I appreciate Evernote doing the right thing--without, I should point out, having yet done the wrong thing, only announced that they were going to start doing it in January. As corporate apologies, retractions, and resets go, this is actually pretty impressive. It also demonstrates that they do pay some attention to what we say here. So, glad I didn't panic and leave; I didn't even get around to opting out yet.

 

This is the crux, right here, and why I still trust them. They were transparent about what they were trying to do (though not as clear as they might have been), and transparent about their mistakes, and no waffling. For others whose comfort level is breached, good luck. 

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7 hours ago, Elizabeth001 said:

A suggestion I have is to have a small group of paid and unpaid users that you could question and get their advice from before you make policy changes in the future.

They have a pretty good audience right here, among other places; since they were announcing a proposed policy change, they were able to get feedback and reverse before actually implementing it.

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14 minutes ago, jefito said:

They have a pretty good audience right here, among other places; since they were announcing a proposed policy change, they were able to get feedback and reverse before actually implementing it.

I think the key word was "before".  As in before announcing it.  Not their finest hour.

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Good to hear that you changed your mind. I am a premium customer but if you had proceeded I would immediately stop my subscription and close my account. Now, as others have noted, give us the option of encryption of our data!

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I appreciate that you've made the changes.... however  I found this blog after I'd already removed my data and  put my data (1500 notes) into another app. I've been a user since 2008 and a  paying user since 2012. The privacy policy  change - even if now revoked - was the last straw.

At this point, what I need to see in order to come back is:

  1. Encryption, encryption, encryption - not just note by note;
  2. A commitment to security and privacy. You honestly want paying customers to put their personal and business data on your service and then, oh, maybe you'll have people read it? 
  3. Decent export options that are readable by third party apps - e.g. the ability to  bulk export as text/RTF/Doc/PDF etc. 

Thanks. 

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I imagine that many Evernote users put information into Evernote that is far more personal and sensitive than they would ever put on Facebook, for example.

This should be the litmus test of the level of security that should be implemented in Evernote. Forget all the fancy features that may be exploited by 1% of users, focus on the 100% of users - security of sensitive information. Get that right first, then enhance the product.

Evernote should be more secure than social media applications, at the very least, and should be as secure as banking applications, in my opinion.

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Em 15/12/2016 at 23:18, gbarry disse:

We’ve heard your comments and we are not making the changes to our privacy policy that we’d previously announced. Over the coming months, we will be revising our existing privacy policy to reaffirm this commitment. See our latest blog post for more info.

Let us know what you think below. If you're new to our forums and would like to join the discussion, click "Sign In" at the top right, enter your Evernote account info, select a Display Name and you're all set. As a spam protection your first comment always needs moderation first. After that, you are free to comment as often as you wish. Welcome to our community.

 

Hello,

I read that Evernote, even after revising the police, will still be able to see personal notes contents in case of government request or when they "suspect" that we, users, are violating the terms of the service, is it true?

I paid for an year service, if you change the police and I want to cancel the service, do you will give us proportional refund?

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Em 16/12/2016 at 12:01, Saven disse:

While I'm very glad that to hear that the opt-out only AI policy has been reigned in, I haven't seen any clarification on the other privacy issues:

"And please note that you cannot opt out of employees looking at your content for other reasons stated in our Privacy Policy"

Will employees still be allowed to view our notes under these other conditions? If so, what specifically are these other conditions? Statements such as "We need to do so for troubleshooting purposes or to maintain and improve the Service;" are unreasonably vague and disconcerting.

Thanks in advance for the clarification.

I am concerned about that too 

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I agree which is why I think comments about how we don't seem to be concerned, or at least are more accepting, of Gmail's intrusion, etc. are not helpful. Yes, some of what comes to me in Gmail and Outlook ends-up in Evernote but EN holds a lot more than my emails. It has my private work related ideas and materials, it has everything that drops through my door and is scanned. It has some very personal info.

That said, all users are just going to have to accept that if the Government or any of its agencies wants to see what we are storing, it will be handed over. It's no different than physical assets in the real world, the police can walk into my house today and take my computers away if a judge signs the warrant.

But, EN should do everything possible to make sure that casual access to notes is not possible. The viewing of notes should not be a part of anybody's job and I would hope to be told that it isn't possible if I ever rang support and asked them to do it. I happen to have a dormant account because I once left a country where my mobile was registered and could not validate my logon. Support could do nothing to get my access back. That's how I want it.

In the news this week in the UK is a story about a Canadian company called Camelot, it runs the UK's national lottery. Just revealed is that 7 years ago they paid out 2.5 million UKP to a fraudulent claim. How did he get away with it..... inside assistance from a Camelot employee, EN can do all the vetting they like, but a bad one can slip through. It should be very very difficult for anybody but me to see my notes, and nobody should be able to do it without the access being logged somewhere.

That was long!  Anyway, result of their backtracking is that I shall be staying as a paying user.  And while I am here... to the freeloaders here who are having a moan about a company and product they don't even pay for.... open your wallets.

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Sorry to see such a brilliant app to go down, but this is the eventual consequence when you start to express your intent to read our notes.

Even though you now changed the privacy statement, it is too late.

Having this "manual go through your notes" idea is already unacceptable in the first place, so good bye and good luck.

And by the way, your table option in notes really sucked from beginning till now.

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4 hours ago, Bruno Batista said:

I read that Evernote, even after revising the police, will still be able to see personal notes contents in case of government request or when they "suspect" that we, users, are violating the terms of the service, is it true?

 

4 hours ago, Bruno Batista said:

I am concerned about that too 

 

2 hours ago, MRJ said:

That said, all users are just going to have to accept that if the Government or any of its agencies wants to see what we are storing, it will be handed over. It's no different than physical assets in the real world, the police can walk into my house today and take my computers away if a judge signs the warrant.

Yes, this is a nothing new.  
I secure my private data using encryption.
You should consider this when you're uploading data to the cloud

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2 hours ago, MRJ said:

I agree which is why I think comments about how we don't seem to be concerned, or at least are more accepting, of Gmail's intrusion, etc. are not helpful. Yes, some of what comes to me in Gmail and Outlook ends-up in Evernote but EN holds a lot more than my emails. It has my private work related ideas and materials, it has everything that drops through my door and is scanned. It has some very personal info.

That said, all users are just going to have to accept that if the Government or any of its agencies wants to see what we are storing, it will be handed over. It's no different than physical assets in the real world, the police can walk into my house today and take my computers away if a judge signs the warrant.

But, EN should do everything possible to make sure that casual access to notes is not possible. The viewing of notes should not be a part of anybody's job and I would hope to be told that it isn't possible if I ever rang support and asked them to do it. I happen to have a dormant account because I once left a country where my mobile was registered and could not validate my logon. Support could do nothing to get my access back. That's how I want it.

In the news this week in the UK is a story about a Canadian company called Camelot, it runs the UK's national lottery. Just revealed is that 7 years ago they paid out 2.5 million UKP to a fraudulent claim. How did he get away with it..... inside assistance from a Camelot employee, EN can do all the vetting they like, but a bad one can slip through. It should be very very difficult for anybody but me to see my notes, and nobody should be able to do it without the access being logged somewhere.

That was long!  Anyway, result of their backtracking is that I shall be staying as a paying user.  And while I am here... to the freeloaders here who are having a moan about a company and product they don't even pay for.... open your wallets.

In 2014, Evernote promised us general quality improvements on the core product. After few months, they released work chat and presentation mode. Majority of annoying bugs remain unfixed. How many users out there really want to chat or present in a note-taking app? http://blog.evernote.com/blog/2014/01/04/on-software-quality/

In 2015, Evernote promised us a better writing experience, a better editor. After one year, the editor is still buggy and the experience still sucks. What we get is useless Google Drive integration. https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2015/09/22/the-future-of-writing-in-evernote/

Can you see the pattern here? If no, let me tell you the answer: Evernote can't keep their promises. 

Do you really think that they will abandon their machine learning plan and implement total encryption? No, they are already half-way through their plan. There's no way they are going to abandon their plan. The migration to Google Drive is almost complete. They are going to let things cool down first and polish their policy a bit to make it more convincing, then continue with their plan.

Some of us left Evernote because we have lost trust in them, they are not committed to keeping their promises. Besides that, most of the premium features are useless for most users, i.e. WorkChat and Presentation. Do you think that the moaning of part of the freeloaders are unreasonable? They have their reasons. If Evernote provides enough value for users, they would definitely pay, of course, at appropriate price point. 

 

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10 hours ago, Ex_User said:

Do you really think that they will abandon their machine learning plan

No - I think the project is on-going and it's now opt-in

>>and implement total encryption?

No I don't - Evernote has never indicated an interest in this feature; other than specific text encryption

Peronally, I think encryption is important; I use it all the time
There are many features not implemented in Evernote; Either accept that, or switch to a different product

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8 分鐘前, Ex_User說:

In 2014, Evernote promised us general quality improvements on the core product. After few months, they released work chat and presentation mode. Majority of annoying bugs remain unfixed. How many users out there really want to chat or present in a note-taking app? http://blog.evernote.com/blog/2014/01/04/on-software-quality/

In 2015, Evernote promised us a better writing experience, a better editor. After one year, the editor is still buggy and the experience still sucks. What we get is useless Google Drive integration. https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2015/09/22/the-future-of-writing-in-evernote/

Can you see the pattern here? If no, let me tell you the answer: Evernote can't keep their promises. 

Do you really think that they will abandon their machine learning plan and implement total encryption? No, they are already half-way through their plan. There's no way they are going to abandon their plan. The migration to Google Drive is almost complete. They are going to let things cool down first and polish their policy a bit to make it more convincing, then continue with their plan.

Some of us left Evernote because we have lost trust in them, they are not committed to keeping their promises. Besides that, most of the premium features are useless for most users, i.e. WorkChat and Presentation. Do you think that the moaning of part of the freeloaders are unreasonable? They have their reasons. If Evernote provides enough value for users, they would definitely pay, of course, at appropriate price point. 

 

There are some examples:

  • In my iPad Air, when I tap the search button in Today's Widget, the app is launched without the search page.
  • The Today's Widget always fails to display some of the content especially the 4 action buttons (and even shows 'failed to load').
  • Crashes always occur after tapping search results.
  • Bugs even occur in iPhone SE released in 2016.

But to be fair they did improve the editor in both iOS and Mac versions. They did even rewrite the note editor in iOS.

To be honest, they still do so little...

I have told customer services about the bugs, but what breaks customers' heart is that, you look at the upcoming machine rather than your customers, and the customers feel they have been betrayed. Especially those who are freelancers and (one-man) startup and who can only apply for the personal professional account, putting all their businesss into the big elephants. And one day the company said they can open their elephants' mouth to see inside.

引用

Do you really think that they will abandon their machine learning plan and implement total encryption? No, they are already half-way through their plan. There's no way they are going to abandon their plan.

They have already admitted that,

引用

Instead, in the coming months we will be revising our existing Privacy Policy to address our customers’ concerns, reinforce that their data remains private by default, and confirm the trust they have placed in Evernote is well founded. In addition, we will make machine learning technologies available to our users, but no employees will be reading note content as part of this process unless users opt in.We will invite Evernote customers to help us build a better product by joining the program.

I don't mind if Evernote has many imaginations on future cloud notebooks. But make sure that they have abundant resources and time on fixing all the bugs and create much better and smoother taking note experiences first! The app itself is the foundation of all including what you say about machine learning. After using several note-taking apps I can feel the vision of Evernote, but if the app is unusable, everything is rubbish!

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14 minutes ago, Ex_User said:

In 2014, Evernote promised us general quality improvements on the core product. After few months, they released work chat and presentation mode. Majority of annoying bugs remain unfixed. How many users out there really want to chat or present in a note-taking app? http://blog.evernote.com/blog/2014/01/04/on-software-quality/

In 2015, Evernote promised us a better writing experience, a better editor. After one year, the editor is still buggy and the experience still sucks. What we get is useless Google Drive integration. https://blog.evernote.com/blog/2015/09/22/the-future-of-writing-in-evernote/

Can you see the pattern here? If no, let me tell you the answer: Evernote can't keep their promises. 

Do you really think that they will abandon their machine learning plan and implement total encryption? No, they are already half-way through their plan. There's no way they are going to abandon their plan. The migration to Google Drive is almost complete. They are going to let things cool down first and polish their policy a bit to make it more convincing, then continue with their plan.

Some of us left Evernote because we have lost trust in them, they are not committed to keeping their promises. Besides that, most of the premium features are useless for most users, i.e. WorkChat and Presentation. Do you think that the moaning of part of the freeloaders are unreasonable? They have their reasons. If Evernote provides enough value for users, they would definitely pay, of course, at appropriate price point. 

 

There is still hope though: it turns out that the the google cloud move may lead to much more advanced cryptographic techniques, such as searching in encrypted data. Evernote would never find the resources to research and develop this all by itself.

Below an excerpt from  https://cloud.google.com/security/encryption-at-rest/

" ...Google plans to remain the industry leader in encryption for cloud services. In terms of developing, implementing, and researching newer cryptographic techniques, we have teams working on:

  • Partially homomorphic cryptography, which allows some operations to be performed on data while it is encrypted, so the cloud never sees the data in plaintext, even in memory. One place this technology is being used is as part of our experimental encrypted BigQuery client, which is openly available.
  • Format- and order- preserving cryptography, which allows some comparison and ranking operations to be performed on data while it is encrypted.

..."

 

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54 minutes ago, Ex_User said:

In 2014, Evernote promised us general quality improvements on the core product. 

 

33 minutes ago, Alvin C said:

There are some examples:

Why do you think this relates to the changes/revisit to the Privacy Policy?

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1 hora atrás, DTLow disse:

 

 

Yes, this is a nothing new.  
I secure my private data using encryption.
You should consider this when you're uploading data to the cloud

Actually, it is new to Evernote, knowing that they didn't do that is why I was using it. Now I'm concerned.

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29 minutos atrás, eric99 disse:

There is still hope though: it turns out that the the google cloud move may lead to much more advanced cryptographic techniques, such as searching in encrypted data. Evernote would never find the resources to research and develop this all by itself.

Below an excerpt from  https://cloud.google.com/security/encryption-at-rest/

" ...Google plans to remain the industry leader in encryption for cloud services. In terms of developing, implementing, and researching newer cryptographic techniques, we have teams working on:

  • Partially homomorphic cryptography, which allows some operations to be performed on data while it is encrypted, so the cloud never sees the data in plaintext, even in memory. One place this technology is being used is as part of our experimental encrypted BigQuery client, which is openly available.
  • Format- and order- preserving cryptography, which allows some comparison and ranking operations to be performed on data while it is encrypted.

..."

 

So, are you guys moving to GDrive? Why not OneNote as a note taking app? They even have a migration app.

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4 minutes ago, Bruno Batista said:

So, are you guys moving to GDrive? Why not OneNote as a note taking app? They even have a migration app.

No, Evernote provides the service I need for storing/retrieving my data

As for note taking, the Evernote edit is basic; ok for notes but for serious work I use dedicated apps

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6 minutes ago, Bruno Batista said:

So, are you guys moving to GDrive? Why not OneNote as a note taking app? They even have a migration app.

No, Evernote just  moved all its data to Google Cloud (yours included)

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6 minutes ago, Bruno Batista said:

So, are you guys moving to GDrive? Why not OneNote as a note taking app? They even have a migration app.

No, Evernote just  moved all its data to Google Cloud (yours included)

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25 minutes ago, eric99 said:

No, Evernote just  moved all its data to Google Cloud (yours included)

Yep all your data is in the same space (but a different enterprise account) that is also used by CocaCola, Spotify, Ocado, SnapChat, Philips, and Wix for their client systems.

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2 hours ago, Ex_User said:

In 2014, Evernote promised us general quality improvements on the core product.... Do you really think that they will abandon their machine learning plan and implement total encryption? ...Do you think that the moaning of part of the freeloaders are unreasonable? They have their reasons. If Evernote provides enough value for users, they would definitely pay, of course, at appropriate price point. 

 

Well you quoted me and littered your post with questions, so I suppose you are asking me.

That surprises me, but since you ask, no i don't think they will abandon their plans, and yes I do think the moaning on the part of the freeloaders is unreasonable.

I think that if you use a product for free you take what you get. You lose the right to complain.

Frankly, if you've stopped using it, I don't know why you're still here.

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7 hours ago, Bruno Batista said:

I read that Evernote, even after revising the police, will still be able to see personal notes contents in case of government request or when they "suspect" that we, users, are violating the terms of the service, is it true?

Yes. Read their privacy policy: https://evernote.com/legal/privacy.php

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13 minutes ago, astroflyer said:

the same mistake might be repeated in the future

Just to be clear on the issue for this

My understanding is

  • This is not a Disaster
    This is not Bombs Going Off
    This is not a Tipping Point
    ... other FUD
     
  • This is an initiative by Evernote called Machine Learning
    Previously the default was Opt-In; this has been changed to default Opt-Out
    Evernote recognized this impacted the Privacy Policy and notified users
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One thing this whole saga has taught me - don't read a few headline privacy terms and assume that encryption is standard!! When I upgraded to Premium, I assumed that private notes, personal stuff and Evernote went hand-in-hand. How on earth as a company like Evernote get away with not having encryption as standard and my data in total lockdown? 

I'm very happy that EN have decided to have a rethink but I want more. I still want total encryption so all my personal data, financial data, business data, ideas, thoughts, IP is all protected. I want to make it very difficult for even government agencies to get hold of my data. One thing Mr Snowden showed us was that government snooping is sometimes just that - snooping because they can snoop. 

Please lock my data down and keep giving me improvements and you'll have a customer for life.  Without these two things, I have zero loyalty. I'll make use of the portability as soon as someone gives me total lockdown. 

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2 minutes ago, Flight101 said:

I still want total encryption

Evernote has never given an indication that they're interested in "total encryption"
You made a mistake with all your "assuming"
Are you sure this is the right service for you?

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On 12/17/2016 at 11:48 AM, Dan Richardson said:

but this latest sell-out on the part of O'Neill and his team has been the final straw.

How was it a "sell out" to improve the so-called "Machine Learning" mechanism to provide a better service to customers? You could have opted out, and maybe the service would have been horrible, but I don't understand how it was a "sell out" to attempt to make the product better.

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1 hora atrás, DTLow disse:

Just to be clear on the issue for this

My understanding is

  • This is not a Disaster
    This is not Bombs Going Off
    This is not a Tipping Point
    ... other FUD
     
  • This is an initiative by Evernote called Machine Learning
    Previously the default was Opt-In; this has been changed to default Opt-Out
    Evernote recognized this impacted the Privacy Policy and notified users

It isn't just an opt-out option.

Even in that mythical opt-out, they still will be able to see our personal notes at least in 2 expressed terms: (a) if they suspect that there is any violation of the service by the user; (b) if the government ask.

(a) if they "suspect" there is any service violation, but in the end they find that the user didn't nothing, the damaged already will be done, they had seen the personal notes of an innocent; and who are they to lead a private investigation in users personal notes without a judicial order? It is like if you suspect of your boss (yes, we are as consumers theirs boss in the limits of the contract) and starts to read his letters trying to  find something. It is a violation of our privacy and the constitutional rights that protects us.

(b) in which case they will send our notes for the government and for which government? I mean, all will need is a phone call of any agency or they will need a court order? The only legal and legitimate way to give any information for the government is after a judicial order, under the due process of law. Another question, which government will be able to ask? If the Chinese government ask for informations of an user that lives in the USA, will they provide? And if the USA government ask for information of a Russian citizen, will they give? It is not explained.

All those thing will be happening undercover, without a warning (I presume they will not be spying on us 24/7), they will see and provide personal informations without tell the users and give chance for defense. It is under the right of consumers information that before they take and after they took a tactical look in the users data, they at least send an e-mail warning.

That privacy agreement must be rethinked.

Till there I will need to find an "off line" note alternative, crypt the data base, and sync the data with Dropbox or SpiderWoak, and dell with OneNote for more simple and noncritical notes.

If I have to drop the service by a change of the company police, I will demand proportional refund, as I didn't gave the reason to finish the contract. 

That's why I am a lot concerned.

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1 minute ago, Bruno Batista said:

It isn't just an opt-out option.

Even in that mythical opt-out, they still will be able to see our personal notes at least in 2 expressed terms: (a) if they suspect that there is any violation of the service by the user; (b) if the government ask.

...

If this upsets you, encrypt your data

Also

 

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40 minutes ago, lykoz said:

Welcome to Trumps America..... It has started. (American freedoms? rofl... You voted away the whole worlds freedoms including your own.)

https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/12/trump-surveillance-fears-could-lift-privacy-tech-in-europe/

Evernote the first to bow down to the pressure. Not surprised. I see the Evernote loyalist, lemmings defending (as always- armed with their keyboards), this complete roll-back in the Evernote privacy promise once more (like they did with multiple devices)..

I said something about the importance of 'goodwill' and 'trust' some time ago... 

Like I said.. If they are willing to change one user-company directive, company founded on, the rest will follow.

 

 

Great, so now this is political and all due to the recent election. LOL

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5 minutes ago, sunvalley said:

Great, so now this is political and all due to the recent election. LOL

How is it not? Trump's surveillance policy is abundantly clear....

Do americans just vote on exposed e-mails vs  grabbing private parts and not listen to anything else they say?

On second thought... cant be a far stretch, given the hours of air time, those two things were discussed by candidates in presidential debates on worldwide television.

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50 minutes ago, lykoz said:

Welcome to Trumps America..... It has started. (American freedoms? rofl... You voted away the whole worlds freedoms including your own.)

 

13 minutes ago, lykoz said:

You are 100% correct.

But a lot of this has to do with with US laws, and the election of trump.

 

5 minutes ago, lykoz said:

How is it not? Trump's surveillance policy is abundantly clear...

@lykoz   This is not a political forum

Please restrict your comments to Evernote discussion and post your political comments elsewhere

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The minute I saw that Evernote was going to let their employees read my notes, and after I opted out this dumb idea, I began the process of getting all my data off of Evernote and onto another service.  Since then, Evernote has retracted this policy, sort of.  We are informed that a "new" privacy policy is being cobbled together, as we speak.

I was shocked to see that, at the outset, Evernote would even consider that it was a good idea to tell people that they intended their employees to be able to read my notes and we would have to 'opt-out' of this policy, a policy that allows 20 somethings to sit around and snoop through my personal data.  Allowing ANY employee to sift through our data is a recipe for disaster.  Only people who have never worked for organizations of any size would deny that such access would lead to abuse. "Hey Fred, check out what this guy put in this note....can you believe it...I'll send you the link," or "Boy, this guy has some good information I could use.'  Deny this fact, and you've lost all credibility with me and all other people who have worked for companies with more than a handful of people. I put sensitive, personal, financial, and "none-of-your f***ing-business" data in Evernote. That the Evernote people had to be reminded and scolded about this boggles my mind.

Under NO circumstances will I ever grant such access to Evernote, or any comparable service. For me, though, this is a moot point: I started my getaway after the initial privacy announcement. The retraction is just damage control and convinces me that this issue will come up again. We now know what their vision for Evernote is, and it's not good for users.

You have lost my trust.

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"In addition, we will make machine learning technologies available to our users, but no employees will be reading note content as part of this process unless users opt in."

Will "machine learning" be an opt in feature?  It's unclear from the latest press release whether machine learning will be opt in or default.

If data is accessed by human or by machine, the data is no longer considered private and to believe otherwise is foolish

Google's business practices are clear that "privacy" is not part of their vernacular, so this discussion is most likely more semantics than anything.    

I regret my days with Evernote are coming to a close.  I'm thankful only in that I found Evernote just a few months ago and my transition back to post-it notes shouldn't be to painful.

 

 

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9 hours ago, DTLow said:

There are many features not implemented in Evernote; Either except that, or switch to a different product

@DTLow, I really don't understand your constant defending of Evernote, and suggesting that if any of us want to see certain improvements or added features, rather than discuss them here and maybe help inform the future direction of Evernote, we should "switch to a different product". I'm beginning to be convinced you are an Evernote employee.

It seems to me that Evernote satisfies all of your needs. That's great and wonderful for you, but please quit trying to shutdown discussions we want to have regarding areas some of us think Evernote could be improved. I don't think you miss a single post where someone says they would like to see improvements to encryption, and you either say that Evernote satisfies you, or Evernote will never improve their encryption, or we should switch to an alternative product.

Rather than constantly telling us to "except" (sic) Evernote as is, tell us why you think Evernote should not implement the changes we would like to see, but simply saying that Evernote satisfies you and therefore we should stop asking them to make any changes boggles my mind.

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I just want to tell people that DO NOT get your hopes up on total encryption or better encryption or anything at all from Evernote. They didn't make a U-turn on their plan, they just put it on hold temporarily to let things cool down. They are going to implement their machine learning plan, one way or another. Machine learning requires access to users data and encryption will certainly limit their access. Besides that, Evernote has always been able to peek into your notes anytime they want, even before the policy change. It's totally up to you whether you still trust them.

 

I was a paying customer for about 1 year, then I see its ugly side. Evernote is a jack-of-all-trades, a master of none. It tries to do too many things, but none of them well. It fails as a note-taking app. The editor is okay if your notes are just simple text but it is a nightmare when you try to create a more complicated note. Overall, it is buggy and feels dated. It's funny that the company advertises their product as a note-taking application but couldn't fix their editor that has been bug-ridden for years. They promised us a better editor. Yes, they did rewrite their editor but unfortunately it is still sucks. The most basic bugs are still remained unfixed after all these years, i.e. copy/paste. "No, you get it all wrong, Evernote shines as a digital filing cabinet". In my opinion, Evernote is not a good digital filing cabinet. I don't feel like attaching a file inside a note is intuitive at all. If I want to store photos, I use photo manager. If I want to share a file across devices, I use cloud storage. If I want to collaborate on a document with others, I use Google Docs or Microsoft Word or Quip. Many people praise the search functionality in Evernote but I think it is overrated. The search is not natural and the results are not ordered by relevance. The most relevant result that matches most of the query condition should be on the top.

 

The sudden price hike is unreasonable and I view it as a back-stab on their loyal customers. Most of the 'premium' features are useless. Look at Context, Work Chat, Presentation mode. With $69.99, I can get Office 365 that provides a well-functioning Office suite and 1TB of storage. I am amazed and surprised by those who are still paying for premium and end up using one or two of those 'premium' features.

 

So, why should we the "freeloaders" pay for an overpriced, bug-ridden product that hasn't seen any notable improvements over the years by a company who couldn't keep their promises? 

 

Currently, I just use simple text editor for short note; google docs for long note; OneNote for project notes. Pairing them with cloud storage gives me a much better, flexible and reliable system. For private and sensitive information, I store them in my Synology NAS or keep them in physical form. Simple and easy. 

 

 

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2 hours ago, huladaddy said:

@DTLow, I really don't understand your constant defending of Evernote

The post you quoted was not an example of defending Evernote.  
A user had asked if anyone thought Evernote would implement encryption, and that they stated it was a required feature.

I fully support the submission the submission of feature requests, but encourage posting in the proper forums (not in this discussion).  I add my vote to the features important  to me

I don't support all the whining and FUD in this discussion. 

If user's state they need a feature (like encryption) and I don't believe it will be implemented, I tell them so.  
If the user states it's a required feature, I suggest work-arounds, and/or they are looking at the wrong product.

>> I'm beginning to be convinced you are an Evernote employee

Employees posting in the forums are clearly indicated.  
They are much more diplomatic than me when dealing with user BS

 

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17 minutes ago, Ex_User said:

I just want to tell people that DO NOT get your hopes up on total encryption

I agree
Users wanting to keep data private should implement their own encryption processing and/or make use of the text encryption feature in Evernote

>>They are going to implement their machine learning plan, one way or another.

Thats my understanding.
The Machine Learning initiative is still being implemented
Users will have to opt-in to participate

 

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Please allow me to share my point of view. I have been a paying customer for about a year now. I use Evernote to manage information for work, and in a limited fashion for personal use.

In order to stay competitive, I need to use cloud-based tools. They are the most efficient way of managing information. At the same time, there is not enough legislation to protect the information I store in the cloud. I find the topic very difficult to navigate. Privacy Policies are impossible for me to understand, because I do not know the legislation around it. Therefore, I usually choose to use services by organizations I trust. I have to do this, because I have no other, better alternative.

My notes are my property. I own them. You may never read them. I pay you to store them for me, and to grant me access to them.

If a government requests acces to my notes, you should exhaust every reasonable measure to prevent this. Only after you have done this may you grant access.

You may not read my notes because you suspect a violation of Terms of Service. If you suspect I am violating the Terms of Service, then disable my account. If you want, send me a dump of the data in encrypted format, and close my account. You have this freedom.

Again, I never want anyone reading my notes unless I have given them explicit permission. This includes Evernote employees, or employees of organizations you collaborate with.

I expect end-to-end encryption for my notes. This means that my notes are stored encrypted on your servers, and only I have access to the encryption key. Notes are sent to my devices encrypted, and then decrypted locally. Search requests and their results also need to be encrypted. There needs to be 2-factor-authentication to authorize devices.

You should list all the actions machines perform with my note data. This includes simple actions such as backing them up, as well as search. Any machine operation which produces data based on my notes that you then use for your own purposes requires my explicit permission. Machine actions should be opt-in. The opt-in should be customizable to specific notebooks.

This was my point of view, expressed in layman's terms. I think that you make an effort to have your system looked at by independent, non-profit organizations, and get their approval. You should talk to privacy experts, and work with them to give your service the privacy users like me expect.
If you tell me that you keep my information private, then I have to take your word for it. I want a 3rd party, who has the ability and means to evaluate your system give a stamp of approval, and come out saying that you keep my information private. This is a solution I consider trustworthy.

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42 minutes ago, Ex_User said:

So, why should we the "freeloaders" pay for an overpriced, bug-ridden product that hasn't seen any notable improvements over the years by a company who couldn't keep their promises? 

 

Currently, I just use simple text editor for short note; google docs for long note; OneNote for project notes. Pairing them with cloud storage gives me a much better, flexible and reliable system. For private and sensitive information, I store them in my Synology NAS or keep them in physical form. Simple and easy. 

 

 

You've made a long list of things you dislike about the product, in fact, you've totally trashed it.  So why would you use it at all, whether free or not.  You seem to have it all sorted with your "simple and easy" solution involving 3 different products, although it doesn't provide an off-site backup of private sensitive info (and please don't come back and explain how you take care of that, my level of interest  expressed numerically is.... zero).

So don't freeload, and don't pay, just uninstall. 

How long do ex users stay on the forum of a product they don't use, I wonder.

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2 hours ago, huladaddy said:

I really don't understand your constant defending of Evernote, and suggesting that if any of us want to see certain improvements or added features, rather than discuss them here and maybe help inform the future direction of Evernote, we should "switch to a different product". I'm beginning to be convinced you are an Evernote employee.

This is a rant thread on Evernote's recent decisions. You should post in the form for the platform you are wanting to change on.

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2 hours ago, DTLow said:

The post you quoted was not an example of defending Evernote.  
A user had asked if anyone thought Evernote would implement encryption, and that they stated it was a required feature.

I fully support the submission the submission of feature requests, but encourage posting in the proper forums (not in this discussion).  I add my vote to the features important  to me

I don't support all the whining and FUD in this discussion. 

If user's state they need a feature (like encryption) and I don't believe it will be implemented, I tell them so.  
If the user states it's a required feature, I suggest work-arounds, and/or they are looking at the wrong product.

>> I'm beginning to be convinced you are an Evernote employee

Employees posting in the forums are clearly indicated.  
They are much more diplomatic than me when dealing with user BS

 

Oh give it a break... You are like an obsessed puppy. I posted some months ago, and you are still at it. Defending every move like a robot.

And rest of SAME littermates, abusing new users as a gang as usual. I mean Scott summers is still here.

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There could be a great benefit to some users in A/I and I believe you should continue exploring the possibilities - although many will leave EN as an immediate response. Clearly opting in to any new feature is demanded by your users so how you present and explain any new option, and your undertakings on privacy, will be of paramount importance to your future. I shall wait to see developments as I find EN a very useful tool. I shall not upgrade from Plus to Premium until the proposed course of action is announced and confirms a totally transparent policy. Good luck. 

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Its good you are making this change. But I already spent time cleaning out all my personal info notes out of the system, and only now keep fluff in there, as the company completely breached my trust. If I hadn't seen a post about the policy on Reddit I would have never known, and that is just wrong that you can sneak in a policy to change who can see notes and only say "oh we changed our policy, read it" and not make it explicit. On top of the violation of privacy. 

I congratulate you on doing the right thing and stepping back and removing the policy that violates privacy. But when my paid subscription is done, I still will be leaving as a customer on principle. Because if you can be trusted now, doesn't mean so in the future. Unless there is a way to encrypt notebooks so that even EN can't see the content of the messages, you all can not be trusted long term.

Because right now, it seems even if the policy changes the mechanism is there for any employee to go through the database and look at any account they so choose. 

Again, everything should be completely encrypted (or customers should have the option to)!

Thank you. 

 

 

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OK, seems like this topic has reached the Mini-FAQ point:

Mini FAQ

  • The topic here is for discussion of the policy change reversal. If you have other issues with Evernote, like feature requests, suggestions for new directions, complaints about specific features, implementation, etc, then this is probably not your thread.
  • Relevant to the policy reversal, yes, machine learning features are still planned, but will be enabled on an opt-in basis
  • Relevant to privacy concerns relating to the policy, so far as we know, user content is and will be stored unencrypted on Evernote's servers for the foreseeable future1, and, as has always been the case, a select subset of Evernote employees have access to that, for reasons delineated in the Privacy Policy page. If any of that is unclear, then asking for clarification seems a fair thing to do here. Also, advocating for privacy policy changes seems topical as well.
  • In general, it's a good idea to evaluate a product based on your current needs and its current status (what it *is*, not what you want it to be). If it doesn't suit your needs, sure, it's OK to advocate for the product that you want, but given that there's no guarantee that Evernote will make that product, it probably is a good idea to look elsewhere.
  • Seems like a rhetorical question, but here goes: if you don't trust a company to do what they say publicly that they will do, then why would you ever use their products?
  • There is a way to hide posts from specific users whose posts you don't find useful/constructive to the forum discussions. Hover their user name in the left column, and click on Ignore User when the popup appears. Sometimes willpower is not enough...

Carry on...

1 Or maybe not: see the blog post Evernote's Future is in the Cloud, specifically: 

Quote

We are confident that the security controls in Google Cloud Platform match the security we currently have in place while adding encryption at rest, a feature many users have asked for in the past.

(thanks to @s2sailor for the heads-up). This may imply that encryption-at-rest is in place already, but it's not clearly stated. If it is, then that's great, if not then my first impression of Evernote's statements is still true. 

Carry on...

Edited for new information.

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19 minutes ago, jefito said:

OK, seems like this topic has reached the Mini-FAQ point:

Mini FAQ

  • The topic here is for discussion of the policy change reversal. If you have other issues with Evernote, like feature requests, suggestions for new directions, complaints about specific features, implementation, etc, then this is probably not your thread.
  • Relevant to the policy reversal, yes, machine learning features are still planned, but will be enabled on an opt-in basis
  • Relevant to privacy concerns relating to the policy, so far as we know, user content is and will be stored unencrypted on Evernote's servers for the foreseeable future, and, as has always been the case, a select subset of Evernote employees have access to that, for reasons delineated in the Privacy Policy page. If any of that is unclear, then asking for clarification seems a fair thing to do here. Also, advocating for privacy policy changes seems topical as well.
  • In general, it's a good idea to evaluate a product based on your current needs and its current status (what it *is*, not what you want it to be). If it doesn't suit your needs, sure, it's OK to advocate for the product that you want, but given that there's no guarantee that Evernote will make that product, it probably is a good idea to look elsewhere.
  • Seems like a rhetorical question, but here goes: if you don't trust a company to do what they say publicly that they will do, then why would you ever use their products?
  • There is a way to hide posts from specific users whose posts you don't find useful/constructive to the forum discussions. Hover their user name in the left column, and click on Ignore User when the popup appears. Sometimes willpower is not enough...

Carry on...

actually, i believe our content is now stored ENCRYPTED on GOOGLE'S SERVERS. Evernote's servers were retired. Of course, Google and Evernote hold the encryption keys, so that is a security measure to keep out unauthorized access by non-employees.

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8 minutes ago, GrumpyMonkey said:

actually, i believe our content is now stored ENCRYPTED on GOOGLE'S SERVERS. Evernote's servers were retired. Of course, Google and Evernote hold the encryption keys, so that is a security measure to keep out unauthorized access by non-employees.

Sure, Google's servers; I debated using that; to my mind it's still Evernote's servers that live in Google land, but technically you're correct. Or maybe we both are.

The encrypted bit, I'm not so sure about . Per the Three Laws page: "Communications between Evernote clients and servers (and between our various data centers) are all encrypted". Doesn't say anything about it being encrypted on the server itself. Again, in the Privacy Policy, it says "We use industry standard encryption to protect your data in transit". Nothing about when it's at rest. But I'll be happy to amend if provided a clear reference that what I said isn't true.

Thanks.

 

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15 horas atrás, MRJ disse:

You've made a long list of things you dislike about the product, in fact, you've totally trashed it.  So why would you use it at all, whether free or not.  You seem to have it all sorted with your "simple and easy" solution involving 3 different products, although it doesn't provide an off-site backup of private sensitive info (and please don't come back and explain how you take care of that, my level of interest  expressed numerically is.... zero).

So don't freeload, and don't pay, just uninstall. 

How long do ex users stay on the forum of a product they don't use, I wonder.

I am still a paying consumer, and I am willing to see the alternatives. That post was useful for me.

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