by tarikjn on 10/13/14, 11:30 PM
Would love to try this, but allowing access to all mail on my account is a deal breaker. The "It all takes just a few clicks. We never have access to your password." isn't enough for me to go past that fact -- who needs your password when you have all the emails now and in the future! (not to mention write emails on your behalf). I did check the FAQ, and although it does assure the reader only the headers are accessed, this is not enough.
I would use this only if the Google authorization checklist actually says this only access email headers, and then I would like to be able to limit the past time period of email accessed, and not give ongoing access.
by blergh123 on 10/14/14, 2:10 AM
I was excited - but stopped the sign up process as soon as I saw it was asking to access all my email. Definitely a deal breaker.
by ozh on 10/14/14, 7:11 AM
I totally want to trust a brand new stuff named "conspire" and let them read all my emails including super sensitive stuff.
Seriously, this looks like an XKCD prank comic gone real.
by dreamfactory2 on 10/14/14, 1:40 AM
So a site called 'conspire' assumes my mail is all in gmail and wants access to it so I can surveil the contacts of people I exchange messages with and their extended networks in turn? You couldn't make this up really. It seems more ethical and less creepy to hire private detectives at this point.
by loucal on 10/14/14, 3:24 PM
Accessing all my mail is a tough sell but allowing you to delete and send email on my behalf requires a lot more trust than you have built up thus far. That isn't to say I don't think this looks really cool and like a good idea, but that I am disappointed I can't try it out.
Can anyone from conspire comment on why it needs more than read-only access to your mail? From reading the privacy policy I gather that the reason might be because they are trying to actually protect people's privacy by not sharing the email address of the person they are emailing on your behalf. I'm not sure though, and if it is actually sending an email from an account that you own I don't see how they can hide that from you. They could delete the sent message to do a basic cover up but (I think) anyone who really wanted to know could probably find out the last email that was sent from their account. Then again if the messages are sent using their service as a middleman (more likely imho) then I'm still stumped as to why they need more than 'read only' access to my email.
by torkable on 10/13/14, 10:46 PM
Yea I'll just let this website I've never heard of access to my email data!
by pauljm on 10/14/14, 8:23 PM
Paul, Conspire co-founder and CTO, here. Thanks a lot for the feedback.
I understand granting "manage my email" access is a big step. Unfortunately, Gmail/Google Apps IMAP access is currently all-or-nothing. All we need to understand the network is read-only access to message headers--not including subject line--but we're forced to ask for everything.
The new Gmail API, https://developers.google.com/gmail/api/, adds a read-only (but not a read-only-headers) permission. We're looking forward to making the switch, but right now the performance difference between the Gmail API and plain IMAP is prohibitive. More on that here: http://blog.conspire.com/post/100016691078/why-we-arent-usin....
by owens99 on 10/14/14, 8:18 PM
This is great, the biggest weakness is there it's based on gmail so the value is limited unless one's entire network is on the service. If this was based on Twitter, all the data on who follows who is public and there's more immediate value. I regularly use methods like this for business development.
by mathattack on 10/14/14, 5:57 AM
Ummm... Letting a service called Conspire manage my email???? It appears that people are letting this happen though.
by ehurrell on 10/14/14, 7:53 AM
Seems very similar to Datahug, how is it different/better? While both services offer something compelling they both want full access to emails which isn't exactly necessary, I've done something similar looking at LinkedIn data.
by th0br0 on 10/13/14, 10:25 PM
uhm... why does the faq page explain IMAP access when the product's using Google's EMail API? Also, "extended network" is not defined.
OTOH, nice project and blissfully simple!
by petervandijck on 10/14/14, 12:13 PM
Building a network graph of who emails who, and using that to drive introductions/sales - I like it. Especially because of the network effects.
by TenJack on 10/14/14, 4:43 PM
"View and manage your mail" permission is a deal breaker for me as well. Why is this a requirement?
by codingmarketer on 10/14/14, 4:16 AM
Love the SVG animation that was done on the background of the landing page!! neat!
by SomeCallMeTim on 10/14/14, 3:02 AM
Very cool idea, and welcome to Boulder!
by jasjitsingh85 on 10/14/14, 2:14 AM
this is the most incredible service I've seen on HN. Very nice work to the guys behind this. awesome