Update: SchoolFeed CEO Lance Tokuda has responded to my questions. See his email in full below.
Late one evening about a month ago, I received a notification on Facebook saying that one of my friends had invited me to join SchoolFeed, a Classmates.com-like social network that connects users with old high school buddies. The service uses a Facebook Canvas app to scrape a wide breadth of user data, and automatically builds user profiles on Facebook and its stand-alone site. Mindlessly, I approved the SchoolFeed app — which is the only way to join SchoolFeed — and promptly forgot all about it.
The next day, I noticed a surprising number of notifications from SchoolFeed in my inbox saying that others had added me to their network. Intrigued that so many were using the service, I clicked on SchoolFeed, and quickly realized that I would likely never use it. I’ve already connected with most of my classmates on Facebook, after all. Why do I need an entirely separate service to do the same? Bored and put-off, I promptly removed the app from my Facebook account, and decided to forget the whole thing all over again — or so I thought.
Frustration builds
Since deleting the SchoolFeed app on Facebook, I have received more than a dozen notifications saying that “so-and-so has added [me] as a friend on SchoolFeed.” Odd, I thought, considering I’d removed the app weeks ago. I checked my list of apps on Facebook and, sure enough, SchoolFeed was nowhere to be found. I asked some of my friends on Facebook if they’d had a similar experience. They had.
“I’ve told it I dont know how many times to block the [SchoolFeed] app, but it doesnt do anything,” says Alan Hughes, a friend and fellow Facebook user. “I just told a post from the app on my Timeline two times to ‘Remove All Actions by SchoolFeed,’ and then marked it as spam, and each time the post stays exactly where it is, nothing has changed. And it has never even been listed in my apps list.”
A number of other Facebook friends told similar stories. Those I spoke with also said they didn’t know that they were signing up for an entirely different service, outside the confines of Facebook, when they approved the SchoolFeed app. With my suspicions confirmed, I decided to look deeper into why SchoolFeed maintains user accounts even though those users have revoked approval for the Facebook app. So far, I’ve been met only with silence.
What is SchoolFeed, anyway?
Before I go on, some background: Founded by Lance Tokuda, co-founder and former CEO of social game-maker RockYou, SchoolFeed is a free “classmate network.” SchoolFeed allows users to not only find people who attended the same high school, but also people in the same graduating year — a granular search option that Facebook lacks. Unlike its competitor Classmates.com, SchoolFeed is free to use. SchoolFeed users can earn virtual currency on the site by posting content, adding friends, or other activities. As TechCrunch reports, the virtual currency can then be used to play Bingo, or access real-life yearbooks, which users can upload to the site. And just this month, SchoolFeed debuted a new service that allows users pay $40 to have SchoolFeed upload their entire yearbook for them.
Launched last summer, SchoolFeed currently boasts around 10 million users, and has so far raised about $1.75 million in funding from First Round Capital, CrossLink Capital, Interwest Partners, and SK Telecom.
Questions, questions, questions
The SchoolFeed app pulls nearly all your personal and network information from your Facebook account — a detail I foolishly overlooked before approving the app. This includes all your basic information (name, gender, list of friends, etc), profile information (likes, dislikes, movies, books, music, etc), and all your photos. It also allows SchoolFeed to send you emails at the address associated with your Facebook login, and to post updates and game scores on your behalf. While this might be a bit much for some users, access of this kind is not out of the norm. Naively, I assumed that access to this information would be revoked as soon as I disallowed the app. Not so.
After I realized that removing the SchoolFeed app did nothing, I visited the SchoolFeed website to see how to actually delete my profile. I immediately hit a brick wall: In order to delete your SchoolFeed account, you must re-approve the Facebook app, once again allowing the service access to all your information. At that point, I started to get angry. So I did what any perturbed tech journalist does in such a scenario: I started asking questions.
My first email went out to Facebook. Here are the questions I sent:
1. If a Facebook user approves SchoolFeed, but later removes the app, is SchoolFeed violating any terms of service by keeping a user’s Facebook data, even though the user has revoked the app’s approval?
2. If yes, do any other apps do this, and can you provide any examples?
3. Have a significant number of users reported SchoolFeed for being spam?
4. Has Facebook received any other complaints about SchoolFeed?
I then took a look into SchoolFeed’s Terms of Service, and privacy policy — documents I imagine practically zero users read before approving the Facebook app. What I found did not boost my opinion of the site, to say the least. Like this bit from the privacy policy, for example:
“SchoolFeed may disclose your personal information to third parties from time to time in our sole discretion. For this reason you should not disclose information to SchoolFeed that you do not want shared with third parties.”
The only contact information I could find for SchoolFeed was a mailing address (useless for my purposes), and a customer support email address. I sent over an interview request to that address, and a day later received an email from none other than SchoolFeed CEO Lance Tokuda, asking that I direct my questions to Vinay Mahagaoka, SchoolFeed’s chief technology officer. So, I did just that.
Here are the questions I sent Mr. Mahagaoka early Tuesday morning:
1. Why did your company choose to require that users sign up/log in via a Facebook application?
2. Why does SchoolFeed maintain a user’s profile after that user has deleted the SchoolFeed Facebook app?
3. Have you received any complaints about keeping users’ profiles open after they delete the Facebook app, and would SchoolFeed considering changing this requirement? Why, or why not?
4. SchoolFeed’s privacy policy reads: “SchoolFeed may disclose your personal information to third parties from time to time in our sole discretion. For this reason you should not disclose information to SchoolFeed that you do not want shared with third parties.”
Does this mean that SchoolFeed may, at any time, sell or lease user data imported from Facebook via the SchoolFeed app to third-parties? Does “third-parties” ever include advertising or marketing companies? And does SchoolFeed’s policy on this matter differ in any way from how Facebook handles user data?
At the time of this writing, I have heard back from neither Facebook nor SchoolFeed (see below) — not particularly surprising, considering all the other press I’ve come across about SchoolFeed has read like press releases.
Conclusion
In the end, I begrudgingly re-approved the SchoolFeed app, and went through the laborious process of skipping setup steps, so that I could actually delete my account. To SchoolFeed’s credit, they make this option bright and clear at the top of the “Help” page.
So, if deleting a SchoolFeed account is so simple, why this superfluous tirade? Because I feel genuinely deceived by SchoolFeed. I believe my right to share my private information how I see fit was violated by not explicitly informing me that my Facebook information would be ported to an entirely different website. Moreover, I’m supremely annoyed that deleting my unwanted SchoolFeed profile required such a run-around — and I know for certain that at least some other Facebook users feel equally duped and frustrated. It is precisely these kinds of garbage tactics that app makers should avoid. Not only does it make me despise your service, it sheds ill light on Facebook, as well. And the fact that neither company bothered to respond to my questions (SchoolFeed has now responded — 3.15.12) suggests they have no good justification for doing business in this manner.
Perhaps I’m wrong about all of this. Perhaps I’m just cranky and need to relax. Perhaps I’m just wasting my time. But if my silly little diatribe about a spammy Facebook app saves some equally poor sap from going through the same hassle, then I’m happy.
Update: SchoolFeed responds
A few moments ago, Mr. Tokuda responded to my questions. Here is his full email below:
Hi Andrew,
I just read your article on digital trends. Apologies for your bad experience with schoolFeed. Sorry for the delay in responding to your questions, we have a very small team and sometimes it takes more than one day to respond.
1. Why did your company choose to require that users sign up/log in via a Facebook application?
schoolFeed is building a free high school classmates network which connects with Facebook. Only about 8% of all Facebook users are connected to half their class so this is a great way for many people to reconnect with classmates. The Facebook platform makes it easy for users to sign up and connect with one click versus re-entering much of their Facebook information. We will definitely build the ability to sign up without connecting to Facebook, the Facebook connection is only required for our Beta release
2. Why does SchoolFeed maintain a user’s profile after that user has deleted the SchoolFeed Facebook app?
Deleting the schoolFeed Facebook application is different from deleting yourself from schoolFeed. For example, a user may want to keep their schoolFeed and Facebook experiences separate. For the Beta release, they had to connect with Facebook initially to sign up but once they sign up, a connection with Facebook is no longer required. As I mentioned earlier, we will build the ability to sign up without Facebook, that was only a Beta requirement
Not everyone that deletes their schoolFeed application on Facebook wants to delete their schoolFeed profile, photos, questions answered, photos uploaded, link posted, likes, and personal conversations with classmates. We make it easy to do that on schoolFeed but we let people know exactly what will happen and ask for confirmation first
3. Have you received any complaints about keeping users’ profiles open after they delete the Facebook app, and would SchoolFeed considering changing this requirement? Why, or why not?
We don’t get many reports about deleting the app and how it relates to deleting your schoolFeed account but people do mail support to ask how their account can be deleted. We tell them to click the big red “Delete my schoolFeed account” button on the Help page. We make it clear what will be deleted and ask for confirmation. Our belief is that it is much easier to delete your account on schoolFeed versus most sites we are aware of
If there was a way for us to give people the option of deleting their schoolFeed account when they delete the schoolFeed Facebook application, we’d definitely be open to adding this.
4. SchoolFeed’s privacy policy reads: “SchoolFeed may disclose your personal information to third parties from time to time in our sole discretion. For this reason you should not disclose information to SchoolFeed that you do not want shared with third parties.” Does this mean that SchoolFeed may, at any time, sell or lease user data imported from Facebook via the SchoolFeed app to third-parties? Does “third-parties” ever include advertising or marketing companies? And does SchoolFeed’s policy on this matter differ in any way from how Facebook handles user data?
Our goal is to create a classmates network and this gives us the freedom to work with third parties to improve our service. For example, if you graduated in 1990, we could partner with a music provider to share a 1990 top 100 hits list based on that year.
Selling personal data to third parties is not in our business model. For example, we would never sell your email address to a third party so they could spam you.
I’m not sure of the details of Facebook’s policy but we are governed by any restrictions placed on Facebook API data by the Facebook terms of use.
Please let me know if you have any further questions.
Thanks,
Lance
If anyone has got any solution to get rid of this thing, please do share it with us. The Last thing I would want is getting connected to the site all over again to delete my data. If I can’t trust them the first time, how can I trust them with my information a second time.
I appreciate the awareness being created by the Fellow people here.
Hi Lance,
I tried Schoolfeed and found it wasn’t for me. I figured the simple solution is to delete my account which I did the next day. It was pretty easy to find the delete account button. The problem is that even AFTER deleting my account, Schoolfeed is posting using MY name piggybanked onto my friends’ post on other friends’ walls. I understand why you used my name to get other people to sign up when I signed up. But that should have stopped the minute I deleted my account. Your company or social network, is lying to my friends. You’re gaining credibility falsely. The whole reason I deleted my account is bc I don’t want you requesting people to join on my behalf. I’ve emailed support@schoolfeed.com twice with no response. Please take care of this issue. It’s not right for you to use my name and my daughter’s picture (my profile pic at the time) without my permission.
Hi Priscilla,
I agree that if you deleted your account, your name should not be used. Let me check with our product team and apologies for the bad experience.
Lance
Well then Lance tell me how to remove your freakin’ annoying install nag from my Motorola Razar M. Every time I click on the Facebook app it automatically rolls over to your damn Install page. I’ve tried the Delete my Account under the Help page. It may have deleted my schoolfeed account but now I can’t get rid of the Install nag. Schoolfeed should be classified as malware or a fricking virus!
I got an e-mail from a friend today asking me how I know about her school from Japan.
Schoolfeed sent her a message UNDER MY NAME, about her school.
I have since found out that they’ve spammed several of my Facebook friends with messages UNDER MY NAME. I deleted my Schoolfeed account and will NEVER go to their site again. NONE of the messages showed up in my Facebook history so I have to laboriously go to each friend’s home page to find out if they got any messages from me.
Thanks God an internet search let me to this page before I signed up with SchoolFeed! I was THIS close to clicking the “approve app” button on Facebook! Thanks for writing up this article, Lance!
I am having a really big issue with this in regards to my relationship with my husband. He is constantly checking my FB account which is fine because I never have anything to hide, but when he came across the schoolFeed app that was on my FB account he has been going nuts! He is constantly checking it and accusing me of following people and of people following me. I am near the breaking point with this issue. I have people following me or me following people that I don’t even know. There is even someone on there that use to be my bully and tormentor in middle school. I do not recall even signing up for it! Can your friends on your FB sign you up? Or maybe I signed up for it by accident. Any ways, the whole thing is so ridiculous! I haven’t really had a chance to look into schoolFeed, but I am glad to know that there is a way to delete it.
What sucks is you are connected to this app whether you know it or not. I wasn’t even aware I was on there and definitely didn’t agree to following any of the people it said I was following. There are people on there I don’t want to be connected to, but there they are, following with me and all my personal information is there for them to see.
Exactly! You are following people you are not even aware of. I haven’t sent a request to any of those people that I am apparently following on Feedback. I had approved of the app about seven months ago and deleted my profile in two days. It still exists. And half of them I don’t even know who they are!
I think Lance is disingenuous: they use Facebook to access their platform and probably pay heavily for it then abuse privacy and confidentiality that Facebook have to adhere to in order to stay within the law. There are gaps that users assume are safe and obviously they’re not! Facebook is really a gambler’s paradise!
How do I contact these people? I now have a useless Facebook App on my phone because every time I click on it the schoolfeed.classmates.com install screen pops up. I’ve tried to install the app then delete it from the Help screen but now I’m stuck in the neverending loop of install. I can’t remove the Facebook app from my phone because it is part of the rooted apps. I can’t delete Google Chrome for the same reason. Plesae tell me how to contact these pukes directly!
School Feed posted ads on the FB page of my friends without my permission. I never signed up for spammage and never will. FB works just fine for me.
These SF guys are tricky and obnoxious. I just deleted my account with them. This app is just plain impolite.
jesterking from digitaltrends.com said:
yeah, but apparently, they are leaving their account open and allows you to retain their information, which is something they don’t want.
Sharon Kay Work from digitaltrends.com said:
Thank you so much for this info;I’m not connected with this app,but have family and friends who are….I shared this on my profile..Hope they understand it!
Would like to have my account deleted Lance…it was a good app while it lasted.
Add schoolback as an application, go into your notifications and turn them off from schoolfeed and then delete the schoolfeed application and you wont get anything else
There’s a simple solution to all these problems. DON’T PUT ANYTHING on facebook you don’t want people to know.
I just received an email TODAY from SchoolFeed (I too had forgotten I even had that App.) saying it was partnering with Classmates.com. I HATE Classmates.com! They were automatically going to link my forgotten SchoolFeed information on Facebook to Classmates.com. There is a link provided in the email to “Delete your schoolfeed account at anytime” in the next two weeks and your Facebook info will not be shared with Classmates.com. (I blocked all messages from Classmates.com, but I suppose I better go back there and delete my membership if they’re going to do things like this.)
Clicking on the link to delete my Schoolfeed account I am taken to a page that asks me to connect with Facebook. I don’t know what means (e.g. will I be giving even more permission to access my stuff?) so I went into my Facebook account and deleted Schoolfeed from my apps. I can see from your article that this doesn’t solve anything. So now I am back to “Connect with Facebook.”
It wants access to everything in my public profile. I guess this is reinstalling the app.I do that, and skip through all the junk it wants me to add to my profile.
There is no place to delete my account.
After about 5 minutes of clicking around I FINALLY found it. In case you’re interested, it is at the BOTTOM OF THE SETTINGS PAGE. Click on the little gear icon at the top right of the page, click on settings. Scroll down to the bottom.
Well, that’s how you “simply” delete your schoolfeed account.
Help, anyone know how to get rid of all the CRAP on the page.. I don’t mind being with classmates but there is a giant reward star on my picture crap all over the page we know how these programs work if we want to load photos or join yearbook just put a menu get it off my page! Currently cannot recommend this
Hey that’s with my picture too! And it says some 10 points would be given for sharing. That sucks.
I am impressed the CEO of this company has been patiently answering questions. It hasn’t convinced me to join but I will be following it’s progress.
I am tired of being over drawn on my Bank account. How do u delete Bingo from SchoolFeed? They are taking money out of my account without my authorization. I would like to keep School Feed but I do not have the money to pay for any games. Please help me!!! Thank you.
Edna, did you give Schoolfeed your bank card # ? If not that is fraud and very scary. Or maybe you somehow got sucked into paying for something on Schoolfeed without reading the fine print?
Steve
I apparently had all of my info mined by schoolFeed because someone *else* used it. Facebook seems to have just added new privacy settings regarding what information other apps can and cannot access, and the default was sharing an enormous amount of information (including my photos). Can you post the e-mail address for schoolFeed? I would like to e-mail them a request that they delete my data (since I don’t even have an account with them, and never have).
schoolFeed does NOT share your photos without your permission. If someone wants to add your photos to the yearbook, you must approve that. When a user adds you (a non-member) to a class list, the only information we store for that class list is your Facebook ID and your name (we have access to more information but we do not store it)
Oh well how would you like to tell me that my display picture is public. And the people are having access to my profile even when I have not added them. I deleted my account but it still exists. Why would the picture be accessible when I haven’t even approved of it? They see all my interests. It is Public.
Lance,
Let me get this straight from the horse’s mouth. One person above commented that Schoolfeed is taking money out of her bank account without her authorization, for using the Bingo application. I just asked her if she gave Schoolfeed her bank card # without reading the fine print…Someone else said that Schoolfeed had been sending requests to some of his friends UNDER HIS NAME, pretending to be him it appears.I trust that you will shed some light on these two comments. If both comments are not misinformation then I believe all this will come back and bite you pretty hard, and Schoolfeed will soon become extinct.
Thank you,
Steve Hay
Anyone who joins Facebook deserves whatever happens as a result of such stupidity.
That’s a mean thing to say. Some of us actually believed Mark when he said he didn’t want to screw people. Obviously that has changed some, but Facebook still has its benefits. As with any public product, you have to be careful with what you choose to share.
I haven’t downloaded the SchoolFeed app. When it was first presented to me, I noticed that an abnormally large number of my friends were suddenly sending me requests to join. It felt too much like getting spammed by Farmville, so I hesitated and put it off. When it continued, I posted a message on my fb page asking about the app’s legitimacy. Not a single person got back to me about it. I figured at that point that something was up and that SchoolFeed was probably just as sketchy as I deemed it to be. It’s a great idea to be sure, but one that’s already been done and done well.
I also had the same experience. Initially schoolfeed just uploaded hundreds of people from my graduating class who just happened to be fb users, without any permission at all, and they included several classmates who had actually been deceased for years and threw in people who never attended our school and never stepped into my home state but just happened to have the same names as grads. The way they display their pages is misleading and makes it look like people are on there who have never even heard of the app so that people will think it is more popular. I tried being on this app for about a week and got messages from classmates supposedly also on school feed and later they confirmed they had never sent those messages at all. I thought the whole thing was shifty and creepy. Do not believe everything you see or read on schoolfeed
Thank you for writing this. I had the same experience. As I’m sure you know, being the founder of RockYou! Lance knows his way around facebook virality. Working at the company that provided his monetization engine from 2008-2011, I know first hand what he is trying to do here. It’s pretty gross.
He is still living in an era where it is still ok to be spammy on the platform. I personally hope he gets shut down and it provides an example for the people who try to push this scummy stuff in the future.
Now instead of automatically sending requests from facebook friends asking you to join schoolfeed they auto send requests from friends for you to “view their high-school yearbook on schoolfeed”. Do they really think pretending to be my friends to ask me to view something is going to endear users? Also why am I given the option to not allow schoolfeed to post on my behalf or to not allow it to import facebook information, if clicking ‘don’t allow’ means I can’t use the app or proceed with a schoolfeed profile? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RockYou#Controversy I suggest everyone read this too.
schoolFeed does not automatically send requests to friends. That is against Facebook policy. Any app doing that would get shut down by the Facebook policy team. schoolFeed only sends requests to the people you choose
That does not explain why my friend just sent a request to another friend, yet my friend is next to me, not at his computer. My FB is full of random requests to join the service, but the 3 people I’ve asked say they are not canvassing, that the requests are being sent automatically. The thumbnail in the requests also includes four photos of people, most of whom are not members but inclusion of their photos in the requests implies they are members. The first request I was sent came from someone I don’t speak to, immediately turning me off from your service, but I doubt she actually knew she sent me anything. You are absolutely using non-member profile photos, and automatically sending requests, to deny it is to ignore hard facts and evidence. Bad faith all around.
I wanted to thank you for writing this article Andrew. I have gotten lots of e mails saying friends have added me on schoolfeed and this was great at telling me what exactly schoolfeed was. I also think it’s great Lance CEO of schoolfeed was activly responding to comments on here. I would say that is pretty rare and more then likely a no win situation.
You may also want to look into why, as a non-subscriber to the SchoolFeed app on FB, I was able to block it from a subscriber friend’s wall… I saw a Schoolfeed post from a friend in my newsfeed on FB and decided to block it (because honestly,those things don’t interest me). Turns out, it blocked it for my friend and deleted it from her wall. How does that even work? Puzzling..
Hi Heather,
It turns out that anyone clicking the Block link will block posts for the receiving user. The reason we did it that way is because otherwise, we would have to know who clicked the Block link. If we implemented it that way, you would have to install schoolFeed first in order to block it. Would that be annoying?!?
To allow for a one click block without having to install, any click on the link blocks posts to the receiving user. Let me know if that makes sense.
Lance
If people just took a sec to at least skim the tos this stuff wouldn’t be an issue. Maybe I’ve lived with an Internet security guy too long and have become overly paranoid, but I don’t click ok on anything that has to do with my personal info without reading what will be done with it first.
You are not cranky. I too found this site to be really borderline. Most of the people who “joined” did not know what they were joining and had to scramble afterward to unplug. This seems to me to be the new social media thing – pirate other networks to pull the data you have put there and then pretend like they are terribly popular and have a large following. Still haven’t been able to kill my account.
hello, please email us if you would like to delete your account and are unable to do so. if you go to http://schoolfeed.com and sign in, there should be a “help” tab on the right hand side. clicking that should give you a page with a big red delete button. that will delete your activity from schoolFeed, unsubscribe you from email, etc. if this does not work, please email support@schoolfeed.com and we’ll delete your account for you. sorry for the problem, lance
Nice of you to offer to delete my account, but how does one e-mail you? I have deleted my SchoolFeed account twice and I’m still getting e-mails purporting to be from classmates telling me they have added me to SF. If I click on “block” in the e-mail, it takes me back to the SF site and wants me to sign in AGAIN. It knows who I am. PLEASE delete my account and confirm to me that you have done so.
Well, obviously you can’t do that if you don’t know my “personal information.” If you will post an answer here telling me how to e-mail you, I will contact you privately and give you the information that you need to delete my account. Thank you.
Hello Patita,
There is a red “click here” to unsubscribe link in every email. There is also a second unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email.
To delete your account, you can mail us at support@schoolFeed.com.
Hi Lance,
Ive removed the application off my facebook in the ‘help’ section as well as in my facebook account settings. However, Im able to sign into my friends facebook and noticed that my photo was on their news feed at a public setting, which I do not approve of and would like it to be removed immediately as I do not want it publicized. How can I do this ?
yeah, just another reason why I don’t use any Apps in general. literally, I have zero apps on facebook. I like my privacy the way it is, and being on Facebook is intrusive enough. In the T&C, the point that says: “SchoolFeed may disclose your personal information to third parties from time to time in our sole discretion. For this reason you should not disclose information to SchoolFeed that you do not want shared with third parties” alone tells me to stay far far away. Any company, or app that says they can share your info with third parties without asking you first each and every time they do it, is a huge no-brainer for me. Stay far far away.
Also, I love the whole “We’re a small company, and a few number of devs” bit. Yeah, I wonder how much money they get from selling our info to dataminers? Because, lets face it… that’s what this is really all about.
Andrew, if you really have a problem with these guys, you should get in touch with Lisa Marino, CEO of Rockyou.
hey jesterking, we’re here to build a network with features like sharing your yearbook and helping to organize the class reunion. we don’t get any money from selling user information to dataminers and we never will. we’ll never sell your email addresses to marketing companies so they can spam you. we’re here to create a helpful free service
Can we see your companies tax return? I have a very hard time believing you don’t make any money by selling of user info. That’s pretty much the revenue stream of 99% of all social media groups. You’re not doing it out of the kindness of your heart after all.
Response from schoolFeed:
schoolFeed is a free high school classmates service which connects to Facebook. We’ve found that only about 8% of all Facebook users are connected to half their class so this service may be helpful for finding old friends. Facebook created a platform which allows its users to connect with third party services. For example, Tumblr, Tagged, Twitter, Path, and even MySpace all use the Facebook platform
Deleting schoolFeed. If you want to delete yourself from schoolFeed, go to http://schoolFeed.com and click the Help tab on the right. You’ll see a big red button at the top that says “Delete my schoolFeed account”. Just click that. It should be much easier to delete yourself from schoolFeed versus most other networks we are aware of. (Removing the Facebook application removes your connection to Facebook but not your schoolFeed account)
Unsubscribing from email. Every email has: “To unsubscribe from all emails click here”. Click here is a red link, we used red to make it easier to find. Just click that to stop getting emails. There’s even a second unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email since a lot of people tend to look there
Requiring Facebook to Login. Currently for the Beta release, you need a Facebook account to join schoolFeed. We used the Facebook platform so we could get things running quickly with a small team. But we’ll definitely be building a way to login without Faceboook which would have removed some of the author’s frustration with having to re-install himself to access the delete function
Privacy. Our privacy policy is written to allow us to work with third parties to improve our service. We’re not here to sell your personal data to marketing companies so they can spam you.
Other problems: If you have any other problems, then please mail us through the Help tab on the home page. We try to respond to most requests within one business day
Lance Tokuda
I have clicked to have my account deleted from schoolFeed and yet it’s still there, and it still appears on my Facebook timeline.
hello, can you please mail support@schoolfeed.com? right now there is a problem when we call the Facebook API where posts are not deleting. so you have to hide the content using Facebook features. we can mail you the steps and screenshots. sorry for the inconvenience
Lance ,
You have cited over and over that this Facebook login requirement was because this version of SchoolFeed was a Beta release.
Why isn’t the Beta status indicated prominently before we sign up?
When will you be off Beta?
I think it is deceitful that you keep citing this Beta condition. Clearly SchoolFeed developers are capable of creating distinct login abilities. You INTENTIONALLY chose not to so that the App would go viral.
As far as your statistic “Only about 8% of all Facebook users are connected to half their class” So what ? What sample size did you use to make this assertion ? How did you obtain that information ?
Don’t you think that people connect with WHO they want to ?
The site says we are in Beta on http://schoolfeed.com when you first register. Also, our Facebook application says “… We are still in Beta so please send us your feedback :)” You may have missed that but in both cases, we presented ourselves as a Beta product.
You are correct that we started with Facebook logins since that provided the best growth path. Ideally we could gain traction quickly and raise money to develop the site fully.
For the 8% of people that are connected, that was for a sample of our first 10M users and who they were and weren’t connected to in their class. Many users write in that they’ve met classmates that they couldn’t find on Facebook. Joining schoolFeed is completely optional so if it is not providing a service to you, you can delete your profile with one click.
Facebook is full of them. I try to avoid almost everything there.
I knew it!
Thank you so much for this info;I’m not connected with this app,but have family and friends who are….I shared this on my profile..Hope they understand it!
HA I knew there was something fishy about them, glad I never connected them to my fb account
I wondered why I was getting so much spam in my inbox.
Hey Mark, every email from schoolFeed has a link that says “To unsubscribe from all emails, click here”. The “click here” is in red. If you click that, it will unsubscribe you in one-click. Let me know if that helps
yeah, but apparently, they are leaving their account open and allows you to retain their information, which is something they don’t want.
mark’s complaint was about too many inbox emails which can be stopped with one click. to delete your account, you can login to schoolfeed, click the help tab on the right, and click the red “Delete my schoolFeed account” button at the top of the page. that will delete your data. (requires two clicks since we ask you to confirm)
point is, removal of app, should automatically delete account.
I joined SchoolFeed and really enjoy it. Many of my friends also use it and have had good experiences finding friends and staying connected. (Playing Bingo) Anybody joining any website should read terms of service and privacy practices prior to joining. If you disagree with a companies practices or services don’t join. I wanted to make thic comment because so many people take time to complain but the happy people typically don’t speak up. With millions of users and minimal complaints SchoolFeed is here to stay.
Hi lance! I’m really hoping you can help! Can you please read my comment on here? I’m still seeing posts made on my behalf after having deleted my account 3 days ago. I eve resigned up and redeleted in hopes that would help after seeing another post. I’ve emailed support@schoolfeed.com as you suggested twice to no avail.
Hello, deleting schoolFeed should delete all Facebook permissions including the posting permission. I see you emailed support and Sandi responded so I’ll follow up with you on email.
Are you still reading these comments, Lance? If you are I just wanted to tell you that I am NOT able to delete your damnned app! Even though I “deleted” my account I now cannot use Facebook on my phone because when I click on the App it automatically rolls over to your Install page!