Reports surfaced this week that Path – the photo-powered social network of 10 million users – stands accused of resorting to “spammy tactics” for the presumable purpose of recruiting more members.
Adrianne Jeffries of The Verge says that digital marketer Stephen Kenwright “downloaded the app earlier this week, tried it out, uninstalled it, and went to bed.”
But that seeming conclusion to Kenwright’s relationship with Path wasn’t the end at all.
“When he woke up,” Jeffries reports, “he found that Path had gone on a rogue mission early in the morning, texting and robocalling an unknown number of his contacts, including his grandparents.”
Path reportedly worked its way through Kenwright’s entire contact book by the next day.
Coworkers, friends, and family were asking him about the text or phone call they’d received from Path, which stated that Kenwright wanted to share photos with them.
“Having uninstalled the app yesterday when I decided it wasn’t for me, I’m going to go ahead and assume that Path took this data out of my phonebook sometime during the half hour I had it installed,” Kenwright stated in his initial blog entry, which can be read here.
Path’s response?
Kenwright has updated his blog post with a clarification from Path. The company meant to send the messages during the time he was signed up for the app and “didn’t seem to realize that UK landlines… read out text messages that are sent to them.” Path is investigating why there was a delay in the timing of the message delivery.