Evernote's New Privacy Policy Lets Staff Read Notes to Improve Service | Hacker News Reader

Evernote's New Privacy Policy Lets Staff Read Notes to Improve Service

help.evernote.com

48 pointsmarban23 comments

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13177971

You can opt-out of the machine learning features (which use manual human review) in your account settings at https://www.evernote.com/PersonalSettings.action.

You cannot opt-out of allowing staff to read your notes altogether, but you can export your data and move to another service.

If you don't need OCR and are on Mac/iOS, I have found Bear to be a great note-taking alternative to Evernote.

http://www.bear-writer.com/

It includes Markdown support, code syntax highlighting (for some languages), and Evernote migration:

http://www.bear-writer.com/faq/Code%20Snippets/Show%20code%2...

http://www.bear-writer.com/faq/Import/Migrate%20from%20Evern...

Also, Bear is iClouded-sync.

What about open-format exports of user data? When I leave evernote (which I need to do!) I want real ownership of my data.

I've just switched from Evernote to something else (Apple Notes) and Evernote's export format is widely supported for import into other note tools. The single file exports also include all of your binary data, and I found Apple Notes imported it all flawlessly (PDFs, images, etc).

The format is "open" and easily machine readable (it's just XML really).

I also migrated to Apple Notes after they announced that two-devices-free policy. I miss some features which made it easier to organise notes, but otherwise I'm fine.

The only way that staff reads your notes that you can't opt out of is pre-existing stuff - dealing with abuse, responding to your customer service queries, and when legally compelled to do so. You are absolutely able to opt out of the human review associated with these changes.

For Mac, there is also Quiver. It's an upfront paid app rather than a subscription.

Support for MD and notes can be synced using iCloud.

Bear seems nice as well, hadn't heard of it before. Quite like the iOS support.

Haven't used Evernote since I moved to Quiver but will give Bear a spin as well.

I like Quiver but search is pretty bad. I wish it worked like Notational Velocity / NVAlt, but it looks like the app isn't getting regular updates (another thing that worries me a bit).

It's a shame, because in all other aspects I really like Quiver.

Opt-out of analytics should be illegal, analytics and data collection should always be opt-in and clearly described to users. This is worse than the recent homebrew analytics cafuffle.

It would be an improvement if these processes at least followed a "Justify, Notify, Appeal" pattern for human access. Yes I would prefer it to not be done at all, but I would at least appreciate knowing why and when they did it, and being given a period to try and request that they don't do It. Hell if even that seems cumbersome, just being notified it was done would be a huge step forward. A good example would be how slack deals with requests of private history by organisation owners, that made everyone in my company at least somewhat more comfortable.

I keep a lot of scans in my Evernote account, and the built-in OCR is very handy for searching old documents. Does anyone know of any good alternatives here, preferably something you can host somewhere (compared to just running it on your desktop)?

owncloud I guess - I think there are OCR plug-ins (though I don't know how well they work)

Welp, just exported and cancelled my paid account. Too many personal and business notes in there to feel good about them traipsing about as they please.

May I ask which service (if any) you're moving to?

Some commenters using Mac/iOS had some suggestions above. I haven't been able to find a cross-platform replacement, so I just minimize the mission-critical stuff I need on the cloud. Instead of changing tools, I just adapt how I use the tools

Evernote lost me as a potential user when they partnered with Samsung and got installed as a mandatory/system app on my Note 3, demanding frequent updates and running in the background, impossible to get rid of without rooting.

Evernote lost me as a customer when they were forced to partner with the NSA

I can't guess the tone of the letter. Could have used some love.

I for one would be more than happy if they organized them too while they are at it.

Too many times I use Evernote as a dump of everything and end up with ideas, email addresses, random names for people/services/brands/wtv, book/movie/music titles all in the same note that I then need each into their correct notebook and note at a later time. The problem is that there is never a good later time.

edit: typo

How does Google handle this?

To be fair the notice does tell you how to prohibit/deactivate this "feature".

For the .1% of users who read the TOS updates.

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