Evernote backs off from privacy policy changes, says it 'messed up'

Evernote has reversed proposed changes to its privacy policy that would allow employees to read user notes to help train machine learning algorithms. The changes to the privacy policy were to come into effect on Jan. 23. The company plans to revise in the coming months its existing privacy policy to reinforce that customers' data remains private by default, and "confirm the trust they have placed in Evernote is well founded." By late Thursday, however, O'Neill was taking measures to fix the crisis caused by the proposed policy change. "We announced a change to our privacy policy that made it seem like we didn't care about the privacy of our customers or their notes. This was not our intent, and our customers let us know that we messed up, in no uncertain terms. Evernote has reversed proposed changes to its privacy policy that would allow employees to read user notes to help train machine learning algorithms. The changes to the privacy policy were to come into effect on Jan. 23. The company plans to revise in the coming months its existing privacy policy to reinforce that customers' data remains private by default, and "confirm the trust they have placed in Evernote is well founded." By late Thursday, however, O'Neill was taking measures to fix the crisis caused by the proposed policy change. "We announced a change to our privacy policy that made it seem like we didn't care about the privacy of our customers or their notes.