There are millions of algorithms at work in our digital age all the time. If you talk to a friend about cosmetic surgery over lunch, your phone hears you and you’ll see ads for cosmetic surgery on every site you visit for weeks. If I mention that I just had a Dr. Pepper, suddenly Dr. Pepper ads appear on Twitter. It’s an even bigger deal if you sign up for any kind of membership site, or if you donate money to any kind of campaign or political action group – your name, information, address and email will be sold to other campaigns, groups, subscription sites, etc. So it is with… Archewell, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s new umbrella organization and site for their podcast, Netflix and charitable work. You can sign up for Archewell updates and newsletters, and hundreds of thousands of people already have. But will Harry & Meghan sell your info?
Privacy-loving Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s charity could profit from using fans personal data on their new Archewell website. A notice about taking subscribers details and sharing them with “for-profit ventures” is contained at the bottom of the site.
The royals, who quit as senior members of the family last year, launched the full site last week with a message of compassion. The website is the face of their audio, production and foundation efforts, and encourages people to get involved and send them messages. But anyone who signs up or writes in allows the website to legally store and use their data in a variety of ways. The foundation is then potentially able to benefit from sharing the data with “for profit” organisations, or by giving them up in any sale.
A privacy notice on Archewell says: “We may share the information we collect with other parties, including the following: with third-party service providers who process data on our behalf, such as email service providers; with other charitable, non-profit, and for-profit ventures associated with The Duke and Duchess of Sussex that exist now or may be established in the future; as part of a prospective or completed sale, merger, or acquisition, or other transfer of all or part of our assets…We may share information that has been de-identified or aggregated without limitation.”
I think the notice is boilerplate at this point, and just because the notice/warning is there, doesn’t mean H&M will actually sell their subscriber list for profit. But they could! And that would bug me, even if that’s the way nearly every subscription/newsletter site works now. I think it bugs me because it’s clear that one of their big issues – one which they’ll work on for years to come – is about internet safety, and reimagining an internet that functions better for all people and that people (especially women and people of color) feel safe in a space which has been built for them as well. Selling subscriber lists seems antithetical to that, but again, we have no idea if they’ll actually sell that data.
I will say this too: it says a lot that most of the negative stories about Harry & Meghan these days are just royal reporters reading the fine print on various trademark applications or websites. That’s literally all the rota has at this point – it’s become pretty clear that H&M run a pretty tight ship, leak-wise, and if anything, they’ve been able to shut out UK media pretty thoroughly.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, WENN, Avalon Red.
It’s wild how the Sun pulled this story from an Australian reporter’s Twitter account.
Wild.
Dreadful, dreadful….that is what the Fail does as well. Trawling twitter to concoct negative articles. Bottom of the gutter journalism.
There are privacy laws in place that will have them send emails to the subscribers to confirm the use of emails for third parties. The US isn’t subject to the GDPR obligations but there are some laws in place. This is much ado about nothing.
The tabloids want to ding them on “privacy”, when all they wanted was to not have to work with the Royal Rota, the same peiple who hired paps to take pics of their bedroom and fabricated stories about them, tapped their phones, etc.
It’s also interesting how the similar verbiage is on all royal affiliated websites, yet there wasn’t a concern about that.
qWhite interesting.
Agree Bex. The word “privacy” is a hammer that all those idiot commentators and knuckle-dragging reporters like to pound the Sussexes with every time they do anything. They’ve all decided to scream about how the Sussexes supposedly wanted to live their lives in complete and total PRIVACY whenever the Sussexes put anything out there, but it —- as so much of their BS — something they’ve invented about them to hammer them with. All the Sussexes have ever asked for is the right to respect and to keep their private and work lives separate. It is their right to reveal something personal about themselves when and if they choose and that is not being hypocritical. Name me one person in public life who would willingly allow the horrific invasion of privacy that the Sussexes have had to endure. As to the privacy statement on their website….it’s boilerplate and I have no problem with it. It’s the world we live in at the moment.
Eventually the Royal reporters will hand Harry and Meghan their next brand again by screaming privacy if something isn’t already in the works. Just as they turned the online trolling and racism they faced into their brand and a focus of the work. Or Meghan making “are you okay?” their brand. The Royal reporters might have to cover an Archewell podcast in the future and listen to experts on privacy talk about what that word actually means in the 21st century and how it is related to consent.
Yes, I hope they do this.
Agreed that this sounds like a standard boilerplate privacy policy. This site has a similar one where it says they won’t sell your data but may give it for legal and advertising purposes.
So in other words, will they make their money the way the Middletons have?
Yeah whatever. If you don’t want your information sold to a third party don’t sign up for any newsletter. This is what the British press has come to because they decided to smear Harry and Meghan.
LMAO I wonder what the boilerplate language on the Dim’s website says.
They could add a line promising not to sell subscriber information and be done with it. They can still share information for free.
I’m not sure that would satisfy people who don’t want their information transferred to a non-Archewell entity under any condition, but as someone pointed out above, in this day and age if you don’t want that to happen, then don’t sign up for emails etc.
They’re probably cross-referencing their subscriber list with their harasser database so they know who to sic the cops/lawyers on for the internet abuse.
Yeah some people were saying yesterday, that it’s probably to protect themselves against threats rather than to sell information to third parties. That sounds logical because we know there are some crazy people online who hate Harry and Meghan, especially Meghan. The Megxit crew hasn’t stopped even thought they got what they wanted which was Meghan out of the family.
As long as Meghan is with Harry they will never stop because most of them are obsessed with Harry. It’s like those fans who hated FKA Twigs because she was with Pattinson. Meghan doesn’t fit the image of who they wish to see Harry with and they will make a fool of themselves trying to sabotage anything Meghan’s involved in.
You mean like the Middletons did with Party Pieces?
They also had Uncle Gary’s dodgy money financing their company. Remember when he was filmed telling a reporter that he could get drugs and prostitutes for him? Remember when he was photographed knocking his wife out with a punch? (Who remarkably resembles his sister). But Kate’s family is great, right?
The GDPR actually forbids the sale of customer lists without specific consent from the individual and so now the main way the Middletons made their money has vanished.
Might explain the presence of the nearby pot farm.
I’ve gotten really annoyed with all these companies that share my information and I’m overwhelmed with wasteful junk mail (my former university is the worst!). I would love them to take a stand against this as they don’t need the money and it creates tons of garbage (and they claim to be environmental activists and junk mail is awful for our planet!). I would love them to take a stand against this selling of info instead of going along with it but probably not gonna happen since that would cut into their bottom line a lot.
I’m really picky about which website I allow to install cookies. For the most part, I just delete cookies after I visit the website. I doubt the Sussexes would sell these data forward. It’s probably just a standard legal disclaimer in place. I’m puzzled how it creates garbage though if it’s by email.
Exactly, I wipe my history clean every day and take other measures to not deal with spam or unwanted stuff where I can. I wish celebitchy.com would go to subscription quite frankly, as the endless pop up ads when you’re trying to read something or move from screen to screen are incredibly annoying. However, I take the good with the bad and just deal with it when it comes to online access to sites and organizations I want to visit or support. It is what it is. What are the Sussexes supposed to do, re-invent the internet wheel overnight? It’s the way it works at the moment worldwide.
Because it’s both. I always opt out of paper catalogues if I sign up for a store, yet I still receive some from stores I haven’t shopped at in years, and even then shopped at once. Once your information is out there, you have very little control. I know I’ve even manually unsubscribed from places and still kept receiving e-mails from them.
I changed my address with the USPS recently and it’s amazing how much junk mail I’m getting from companies I’ve never gotten mail from before.
The fact that the press tries to put them in the corner of privacy is funny to me. They didn’t leave because they wanted privacy but i see a lot of people don’t understand this. Tbh Archewell can have all of my data and meg&haz aren’t the kind of people to sell your info. Also going onto their website is completely voluntary. There aren’t any sites that don’t have cookies. Even celebitchy. A whole lotta noise about nothing.
Yea, I don’t really care either. Most websites I click on have this sort of notice, even the tabloids themselves. This is one of the things where it would be nice if they don’t, but no problem if they do.
You can’t have a website and not have cookies. It’s quite literally how the internet works nowadays. Like i said going to their site and subscribing is all voluntarily. If you click ok on the terms& conditions it means you are ok with your info being shared. However them selling it is something i can’t see them doing.
kate’s mum sells paper plates! fergie used to sell blenders! Philip sold milk. zara’s husband has a podcast too.
So now Harry and Meghan are being attacked for how the internet works? Meghan invented cookies? This is just stupid. And it’s a desperate attempt to try to tarnish their reputation as philanthropists. They got nothing and this is about ruining her for being black and successful and ruining him for marrying her. Period.
That pic of Meg in Burgundy is amazing. Her skin tone is just wow. She’s gorgeous. I’d sign up for the site. I’m sure they’ll work with ethical organizations.
That picture of them together at the desk! 😍😍😍
Very much much ado about nothing. Per CCPA (California’s Consumer protection act) even using google analytics on your site could constitute selling of data so you have to alert visitors and allow them to opt out of “selling their information”. Usually it’s advised to get EXPLICIT consent before sharing actual email addresses etc with a 3rd party, but many website plugins that improve performance etc are free but make use of meta-data in exchange. Nothing to see here in my opinion. (FYI I’m a digital marketing professional so I deal with this on a regular basis)
I’m a lawyer who practices in the privacy space and came to say the same thing.
Well this is the standard on the internet so they are hoping their readers are too stupid to realize that, or that they hate Meghan so much they will continue along with the same double standard where it’s ok for everyone else but Meghan. I signed up when the site was first announced and I understood the score and am fine with the conditions stated.
When I donate to a charity or public radio, any non-profit, there is a button that pops up that you can opt ,or in, out of your name going to similar organizations or if they can send you additional info. Heck, see this when I shop at Pottery Barn. As noted, this is pretty boilerplate and how subscription lists are built. You can opt out. What do the right wingers always say when we bring up net privacy , “if you have nothing to hide, why are you so worried?” It seems to have mostly rattled the trolls and burner accounts that want to stalk and harass their site. These tabloids will make a major story out of a lost sock in the dryer when it comes to the Sussexes.
Lol! …lost sock in the dryer….l am going to borrow that one.
I read it mostly as they will share the e-mail addresses with the people who send out the newsletters and information that you are there signing up to receive.
Every website uses cookies and stores your data if you sign up for a newsletter. You have the choice to opt out if you want to. The press are making a fuss about nothing.
Party Pieces – the company owned by the M*ddletons uses cookies in their website and collect data about their customers. Standard practice – but the RRs and tabloids aren’t harassing them.
Personally I disable marketing & tracking cookies – even on this site.
Of course they will sell it. The “disclaimer” could have been omitted.
The Sussexes did not say they will live in seclusion and isolation. The British media is losing their minds because the Sussexes are living a successful life ocean’s away from them on their own terms. They are not, as they have wrongly predicted, groveling before the Royal Rota and the Royal family begging for crumbs.