Path CEO Says He's Sorry

I am always leery of people that are only sorry after being busted. I'm not saying that I don't believe this guy, I've just never heard of "helping users find their friends" by taking their entire address book without permission. It stands to reason that I don't need help finding the people in my address book. And what about all the friends and family members in those address books had their personal info used by a company they've never even heard of? "We don't want to connect you with just anyone on Path," Morin says. "Without the contact list information, some of these features just don't work." The address book data, Morin says, is used in only three ways. "We give you a list of suggested friends to connect with who are already on Path. We notify you when other friends of yours join Path." And the third reason speaks to the very uniqueness of Path itself — its "Friend Rank" algorithm. "We used the data for the sake of simplicity," Morin tells me. "Any time you build a network, you have to help users find their friends. And that entire experience is designed to suggest people who you're close to." In other words, it's the whole point of the app itself.