That’s not the important thing at all. The important thing is the Otter.ai is violating the privacy of its users, potentially even breaking laws in some jurisdictions.
If anything, it raises some more red flags that they’re ignoring consent for free users, since that could be interpreted as an attempt to monetize them by collecting data (again, without consent)
If you don’t want non-paying users, then don’t offer a free tier. You don’t get a free pass to do whatever you want to a user just because they aren’t using your paid plan.
I would derive great enjoyment of them in court in a 2 party state telling a judge "well since they weren't really a customer....."
If you install recording software, you're liable for what it records. Bug or not bug, the liablity is yours. The only way you would get Otter.ai in a courtroom would be a civil case and then the not being a paying customer therefore no expectations of a warranty applies.
Seriously, this thread is "I installed recording software and it worked on things I didn't think it would. This company is terrible." while most of us work in tech and know that bugs exist and have generally written some bugs. Worse case, it's a bug. The solution is to stop using it and move on. Or pay for support and have them fix it.
not if it's recording without your consent
> Seriously, this thread is "I installed recording software and it worked on things I didn't think it would.
a poor attempt to reframe the thread, which is actually about a company monitoring confidential meetings without consent
if affirmative consent is such a non-issue here, why couldn't the company get it?
Because some company figured out a 'hack' to make more money, somehow turns from illegal to "legal". And so many users here will defend that.
In this case, it's violating interstate wiretapping laws and state-based 2 party consent laws. But.. they just squint hard and go "Hey we can violate the law and make MORE money".
Uber is exactly that. So is AirBNB. So is Lime/Bird. Just go look at much of the tech companies, and it's "Offline company + way to break law to get money + ONLINE!!!!1!!1!"
A local transcription, manually triggered service would solve the concern I think.
> You don't need a more privacy focused app, you just need another app and probably to become a customer so you can get the support you clearly want.
I think there's a difference between free users with a "hey, my app is broken" complaint and "hey, you just did something incredibly wrong" complaint. It would be like if free Dropbox started uploading random files that it wasn't allowed to in the settings.
The thing is, you would need to review each of the complaints to know which is which. If you're providing no support and because you're not taking money for the service there is no real liability (depending on the contract) being a non-customer would mean, if they do something incredibly wrong you need to get a new provider.
If you're not a customer, you can't expect support. If you want support, pay $10 and then fill the ticket. It just annoys me when people complain about not getting support when they've not paid for anything.
I think the support ticket was only mentioned in the sense that a journalist would: "we contacted the company; they did not respond to the allegations."
Just because you're not taking money doesn't mean you can break the law without liability! Even outside of GDPR/CCPA, most states require all parties to consent in recording and every state requires at least one party to consent in recording.
I do agree that this is the kind of service worth paying for if you want privacy and I'm not a lawyer so I can't say that this is actually illegal, but if you're ignoring not just "hey this is incredibly wrong" tickets but "hey this is illegal and I'm warning you before I file an official complaint" that seems like it will end poorly.
Important thing here is, you're not a customer.
> Are there other, more privacy oriented transcription services anyone can recommend?
Probably not, since this is probably a bug that can affect any of these applications. And privacy focused apps are a niche and a niche that isn't that much fun to develop. The nature of these apps lean towards people who aren't privacy focused since you would be allowing a third party to listen to calls which is the opposite of privacy. You don't need a more privacy focused app, you just need another app and probably to become a customer so you can get the support you clearly want.