Is Klout Doing More Than Using Facebook to Inflate Their Numbers?

Let me say up front, “Jesus, that is (maybe) a terribly misleading headline.”

Klout has been having a rough couple of days. After a release of their new algorithm that tanked everyone’s scores, Tonia Ries discovered a real problem. A profile somehow got created for her son, even though his Facebook settings were private and he never opted-in to Klout. The working theory is that Klout got his information from a comment on one of her public Facebook posts.

They’re creating new profiles for people that have yet to sign up. You’ve seen the notifications, they look like this:

My uncle's score isn't doing so hot.

Klout showing the score equals Klout having the information.

Now those profiles, through bugs in their systems, are showing up live on the site. Fixing the bugs that cause the profiles to show up doesn’t solve the problem. They are still gathering and compiling data on people that have not given them permission to do so. If, when signing up for Klout, you had to check a box that said, “And I give you permission to collect data on all of my friends.” would you click it? Doubtful.

But these influence scores could just be the primer for something even bigger.

Let’s look at some code from Klout’s site and see what metrics they have plans to use, but currently aren’t:

{"ks_uid":"45359","nick":"danieleagee","firstName":"Daniel","lastName":"Agee",
"email":"danieleagee@gmail.com","gender":null,"dob":null,"aboutServiceId":null,
"aboutText":null,"maritalStatus":null,"zip":"0null","householdIncome":null,
"educationLevel":null,"race":null,"householdSize":null,

I especially like the part where they talk about my household and income. Let’s not kid ourselves any longer. Klout is not here to measure influence. They exist for the sole purpose of selling our information to advertisers. They’ve been buying that information for a $10 Subway gift card. The price of our privacy, and our children’s privacy, is an Audi mug.

More Than Just Numbers

Why would Klout steal our friends’ data to create profiles they have no intention of using? I have a guess. (Just a guess, but it makes sense.) It’s a numbers game. Not your score, but how they can sell your score and your information to advertisers. I’m guessing they count every profile they have CREATED in the number they quote to advertisers, not every profile ACTIVATED.

Danny Brown has pointed out many times how awful Klout’s opt-out and account deletion service is.

Their marketing manager has said before, “Make your feeds private if you don’t want information collected.” There’s a reason for that, and it has nothing to do with the users and everything to do with advertisers. If they allow opting-out and only have a strict opt-in policy, their profile numbers will tank. Numbers tank, advertisers leave, they run out of VC money in 18-36 months, and go under.

But by inflating their numbers with my 14 year-old goddaughter’s account, they continue to attract new advertisers.

Crap Is as Crap Does

How are we putting up with this crap? So far, four days after the original posts concerning the privacy issues, Klout is still shockingly quiet. After harassing their marketing manager on Twitter, she offered me the chance to take the conversation out of the public space onto email.

(Trust me, the irony of the marketing manager who suggested making our profiles private if we didn’t want information trolled for and collected asking to take something offline was not lost on me.)

There was no apology, no acknowledgement that she had read the posts, or any addressing of the privacy concerns. Just an offer to delete the profile attached to the Facebook ID. As of writing this, there are no comments on any of the posts by Joe Fernandez (the CEO of Klout who has been known to comment on everything), the marketing manager or a representative of Klout.

No new blog posts apologizing and announcing a new age verification process. No announced changes to how they create profiles and store information. Nothing.

At the beginning of this post, I said the headline might be terribly misleading. I used the term “the working theory”. I’ve made some conclusions based on the information at hand. I’d love to be writing this from a solid position with no uncertain terms. But I can’t. Because they haven’t told us a damn thing.

Silence, in this instance, is not golden. Hell, it’s not even worth a $10 Subway card. Are you as concerned as I am? Am I the only one who thinks this is a big problem that requires our attention? Or am I making a big deal out of nothing? I mean, my Klout score did just go down 2 points.

Update: As of yesterday, Klout now allows you to delete your account. This is one step of many. But it’s a great first step. I deleted mine yesterday. The problem? It only addresses those of us who have activated our accounts. What about my goddaughter, my uncle, your daughter, your aunt? Why do we have to ask for them to delete the data they had no right to collect?

Again, I might be going crazy. I’m now completely without a Klout score. Where am I going to get my inflated of sense of self worth? (Hint: Leave a lot of comments. That’ll help.)

Update #2: While I was complaining about Klout’s possible illegal activity, Cotton Delo over at AdAge was doing a much better job of it with this story: Freebies From Klout Brand Partnerships Could Be FTC No-No. (Hat tip to Amy Tobin for pointing me to the story.) Turns out Klout might be ignoring a rule (or two) from the FTC. I wonder if silence will help them out of this bind too? And yes, I am pissed that I didn’t work in the phrase no-no anywhere in my post. Damnit Cotton.

About the author: Daniel Agee (3 Posts)

Daniel Agee is a former graphic designer and photographer turned project and community manager. A freelancer (read as "mercenary") for hire, he's worked with big brands like Nike, HP and REI. But he likes small businesses best. You can find him creating over on his website.