MyLife (or MyLife.com ) is an American information broker founded by Jeffrey Tinsley in 2002 as Reunion.com. In addition to that name, previously run the business as Wink.com.
MyLife collects personal information through public records and other sources to automatically generate a "MyLife Public Page" for each person, described by MyLife as "a complete biography like Wikipedia about every American." MyLife Public Pages can include a wide range of personal information, including age, current and current household addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, companies, education, photos, relatives, political affiliations, mini biographies and personal review sections that encourage other members of MyLife to judge each other. MyLife claims to have over 225 million public pages with information about almost anyone in the United States, aged 18 and over. According to MyLife, the Public Page can only be edited or deleted if "claimed", a process involving registration with the website and providing credit card numbers or government-issued photo IDs. The site also allows people to search for someone in the United States, read automatically generated public pages, and review them.
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History
In 2007, according to a company press release, MyLife.com received $ 25 Million in venture funding from Oak Investment Partners. The company changed its name from Reunion.com to MyLife.com after joining search engine company, Wink, in the fall of 2008. According to Tinsley, 2008 earnings were estimated at 52 million dollars with 90% of the company's revenue coming from paid subscriptions. In 2009, the company has acquired several small companies including: Planet Alumni, GoodContacts, HighSchoolAlumni, MyAddressBook.com. That year, Ancestry.com reportedly started a data-sharing partnership with MyLife.
In August 2007, the company described its website as the 6th most popular social network site with 28 million users, while a 2008 article in LA Times criticized the company's "aggressive marketing approach." In February 2009, ComScore reported the company website had 18.2 million unique visitors that month and Tech Crunch characterized it as the 4th largest social networking site for January 2009.
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Legal issues
In 2008, classmates.com was involved in a class action lawsuit to send spam emails to people who claimed there was "someone looking for them" and then charge a fee for viewing information, only to find nobody looking for them; 2011's next lawsuit against MyLife states that the company is involved in the same practice and just a branding.com name. The lawsuit also accused the company of making false requests by offering monthly membership and then charging member credit cards at annual rates. Classroom action also accuses MyLife of improperly collected spam contacts from the address book of the person who visited the site. US District Judge Claudia Wilken decided to consolidate the 2011 class action lawsuit with two other fraud class actions against MyLife. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed when classmates.com agreed to pay more than $ 9.5 million in settlement.
The Office of the State Prosecutor of Washington also initiated an investigation in 2011 stemming from concerns that the company's TV ads may have violated the country's Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits unfair and deceptive practices. According to state officials, the company solved this problem by making "termination guarantees" and paying $ 28,000 in lawyers fees and expenses.
In 2015, after a joint investigation by the Santa Monica City Attorney's Office and the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, the company was once again charged, this time for allegedly violating California Anti-Spam laws. Researchers found that MyLife tricks consumers into giving companies their personal identity information, and then their money, through false and misleading advertising. MyLife approved a court ruling that would pay $ 800,000 in fines, plus $ 250,000 in refunds to customers, a decision referred to as "the first major online prosecution for California auto-renewal law offenses". The company is also subject to permanent orders that prohibit false advertising and unauthorized credit card charges.
Better Business Bureau (BBB) ​​has revoked MyLife accreditation, initially giving MyLife a D-rank, and then F, declaring
As of March 20, 2015 the accreditation of this company on BBB has been revoked by the BBB Board of Directors due to recent government actions involving business customer relationships that indicate significant business failures to meet the expected behavior standards of BBB members.
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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