Why we built Licorice
(and why we named it Licorice, too)
The world has become increasingly digitized. There are countless benefits that come with this, like being able to find a recipe, connect with people in other parts of the world, share a playlist with friends, donate to a fund to help a neighbor, or learn more about practically anything, whether it’s the news from across the ocean or how to practice playing guitar while riding a unicycle. One noteworthy feature that applies to almost all of these, too: they are free! Or at least we do not pay for them with money. That is because they are funded by advertising, which means we pay for them with our attention and, in the digital age, typically some information about us, too.
Getting free content in return for getting some ads has generally been something most of us really value. You only get ads when you are consuming the content, and the content quality can be very high, whether you are watching your favorite comedy, listening to your weekly crime podcast, or reading about last night’s game or this morning’s news. What we give up in exchange for free content has changed though - thirty years ago no one knew what we were watching or reading, or who we were. That same capability to connect us all together digitally also means that companies who do that connecting may know with whom, how, when, and about what we connect. Worse, we often do not know who some of those companies are, whom they are sharing our information with, or how it will be used. It feels like one big mess.
Some of us may not care too much how our activities are tracked and profiled, but the vast majority of us would like some greater protections and controls (see here for one example of research about what people think of their data & privacy). We love the benefits of the internet, but we don’t want it to eat us up. Today there are very few ways for consumers to begin to gain some meaningful control. While there are countries around the world that either have passed laws or are in the process of passing them to require companies to give consumers transparency into and control over how their data is used, the end result still falls short of the goal. Instead of it leading to companies informing consumers and giving them clear control and choice, we have a billion pop-ups blooming, each covering half a webpage and trying to get you to say yes without it being clear what you are saying yes to.
We think it can be better. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could clearly understand what data a company collects, how it will be used, whether it will be shared, and with whom? Maybe you could even set your data preferences in one place and not have to say yes or no over and over, too.
One historical example serves as a good comparison: the U.S. food industry. It was only in 1990 that most U.S. food producers were required to disclose what was in their food, including how many calories, or how much sodium. They do so with a clear and consistent nutrition label that enables consumers to make more informed choices about the food they eat. Prior to that, consumers were often left guessing how good or bad something was for them. It’s fair to assume that some consumers would simply make decisions about the healthfulness of a product based on the packaging or marketing, which likely left people thinking that some foods were better for them than they actually were.
Decisions we make about which companies’ websites we visit or apps we use may not feel as consequential as what food we put in our bodies, but the reality is today there is no good way to know what a company does when we give them our email address, or download their app, or even just visit their website (increasingly companies are tying your IP address to your email or even your home address - a quick search reveals a bunch of providers of this service). We think an equivalent of a nutrition label for companies you connect to would be a great way to help consumers make better choices when sharing personal data, not just online, but in stores or anywhere personal information is exchanged. We are already working on our own version, but until then you will find complete details regarding what we collect about users, how it is used, and who else has access to it in our Privacy Policy (in our case we collect no personal information, including IP address, and do not share it with anyone).
While we look forward to a day where every business has a “Data nutrition” label, we created Licorice out of an interest in trying to make the internet just as free as it has been, but without consumers having to worry about how they are being tracked.
We knew that companies would not be able to continue giving us content for free unless they had some data about us to target ads effectively. We had to create a solution that would allow people to remain anonymous but also provide companies with some data for ad targeting.
We cannot prevent all kinds of tracking, but we’re taking as many steps as we can to limit it, and we will continue to take more and more and let you know about them. For other steps you can take to protect yourself beyond Licorice, please check out this post.
To answer the question “Why did you name it Licorice?”, it’s pretty simple: we wanted to pick something that people tended to either love or hate, since we wanted it to represent something each of us would prefer being able to indicate ourselves, rather than being followed around and having companies guess. And pickles.me was already taken.
