Gratis Internet, the company behind FreeiPods.com that’s being sued by the NY attorney general for what’s been described as the biggest internet privacy abuse ever, denies the charges.
In a statement published on Friday, Gratis says:
At all times, Gratis has maintained control and ownership of its user information and never, not once, profited from any sale of data…
Gratis at no time in its history ever sold its list to anyone or allowed a company to purchase consumer data, nor has it ever considered doing so, nor will it ever in the future. Email marketing represented a small fraction (less than 1.5%) of its 2004 and 2005 revenues, and the company earned less than $32,000 from users in the state of New York from its practice of sending promotional emails.
Establishing and maintaining a bond of trust between Gratis and consumers is a cornerstone of its business. Gratis believes that its impressive growth in recent years is a direct reflection of the fact
that, in all its dealings with consumers, the company has behaved in a trustworthy and responsible manner at all times and in all ways.
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
Leander has written for Wired magazine (including the Issue 16.04 cover story about Steve Jobs’ leadership at Apple, entitled Evil/Genius), Scientific American, The Guardian, The Observer, The San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.
Leander is an expert on:
Apple and Apple history
Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Tim Cook and Apple leadership
Apple community
iPhone and iOS
iPad and iPadOS
Mac and macOS
Apple Watch and watchOS
Apple TV and tvOS
AirPods
Leander has a postgrad diploma in artificial intelligence from the University of Aberdeen, and a BSc (Hons) in experimental psychology from the University of Sussex.
He has a diploma in journalism from the UK’s National Council for the Training of Journalists.
Leander lives in San Francisco, California, and is married with four children. He’s an avid biker and has ridden in many long-distance bike events, including California’s legendary Death Ride.
You can find out more about Leander on LinkedIn and Facebook. You can follow him on X at @lkahney or Instagram.
2 responses to “FreeiPods.com Denies Email Abuse”
It would be so unfair to forcibly make Freepay go bankrupt only to recompensate some people from New York. The world is bigger than the state of New York, also the world of Freepay.
Here in Germany we also have thousands of people who signed up and struggle to get others to subscribe to Freepay. I for instance have already about 200 people for the laptop. You can see it at http://www.laptop-kostenlos.tk…
Until now only seven of the 200 accepted an offer but I am on a very good way to get the laptop. If these lawyers will destroy the company this was all in vain.
Freepay should be forced to survive and go on like before, but without selling their costumers information. Maybe they sold our German data too? Who thinks of the people outside the state of New York?
By the way: Please sign up at http://laptops.freepay.com/?r=… and accept an offer! I still need some of the “Greens” who accepted the offer to get my free laptop.