Forum

[Avidpoet]

Can someone explain this little tidbit in the User Agreement?


3.2 Transfer of Data

The Software may from time to time transmit the data collected and generated through your use of the Software (including, without limitation, search results and keyword and other rankings) to TrafficTravis (and any of our affiliated companies). You grant TrafficTravis (and any of our affiliated companies) a perpetual, irrevocable, fully paid-up, non-exclusive license to store and use such data for our business purposes.

Someone posted this on the Warrior Forum and just wanted some explanations about this.

 

[Lumina]

A free tool that isn't really free? This leaves a bit of a bad taste ... but will suspend any thoughts until we hear from Mark.

 

[Aletta]

I'm not sure whether this is standard user agreement guff or not, but I can tell you what data we collect and how we use it...

You know the keyword research tool? How it displays search counts for words? Well, we don't have that data on tap because we're not the search engines ourselves. So when someone searches for a word/phrase for the first time, we have to go to Google/Yahoo/whoever and ask them about the search counts.

When we get an answer, we store that answer in our databases for a while, so that we're not having to hit up the search engines every time anyone searches for "world of warcraft". Kinda like caching.

We also store some data from the PPC tools so that it can be served up in different parts of the software. Again, just to speed things up.

We don't store any personally identifiable information, and the things you search for are in no way associated with you as a user.

Don't worry... we're not stealing your ideas. We're not selling the data to spammers. We're not even going to print t-shirts with ridiculous search terms on them and wear them around the office for laughs.

I can understand the paranoia, but old Travis is pretty harmless :)

 

[Aletta]

Wowee... that's some thread on the warrior forum.

Is that really what people think of us? A little part of my heart just broke. :(

 

[Avidpoet]

I first read about it on the Warrior Forum which is why I didn't jump to conclusions.

 

[JJPerkins]

Blimey! What a thread!
Makes me glad I never have time to check out the WF after all :-)

 

[Lumina]

Thanks, Aletta, for the clear explanation! And no harm done.

As I have so much still to learn on the internet this 'revelation' came as, oh no, something else I didn't know/should have known. It's true I don't read all the Terms of Agreement before accepting them, as mostly they are Greek to me, but suppose I'll try a little harder next time. Di

 

[smartius]

There is also an unfavorable comment posted on the cnet review regarding this same 3.2 - Transfer of Data.

 

[Aletta]

Yup, we know :)
I really wish people wouldn't leap to conclusions like that.

To keep you guys in the loop (even though all the gossip is going down elsewhere) we've now updated the user agreement in Traffic Travis to be more explicit to hopefully quell the fears of the Tinfoil Hat Brigade :)

Good news is that people on the warrior forum now think we're rockstars for doing so.

Party on, Garth!