A resident surprised by the Nextdoor neighborhood app: “Did they choose my name on the Internet? (update)

It looks like a pre-printed postal code lottery letter that you regularly receive in the mail, but when I opened the envelope a letter appeared from the neighborhood app “ Nextdoor ” saying that my district also participates “ in this free and private district. app ‘. An app where you can get to know your neighbors, share information, and use it to borrow things. A few bells have started ringing … an app that sends a letter? Nextdoor, what about that?

Warnings

If you type “Nextdoor” into Google, you will quickly end up with messages from the consumer association, Tros-Radar and the police, all of whom prevent for “Nextdoor”. Because whoever registers, the company provides a lot of private information, such as address, phone number and sometimes even a profile picture. According to the TV program Scammed By downloading the app, you authorize Nextdoor to use this data.

Volunteering

Under the letter I received this weekend is the name of Bert Jobing who, according to the letter, must live on my street. I only have to take a small step outside the front doors and I have already found Bert and show him the letter. “I don’t know the whole company,” Jobing says, “and I certainly didn’t send that letter either. They probably took my name from the Internet. I have been the president of the playground association for many years and still do volunteer work. Many people know me in this area and the people who sent this letter are apparently benefiting from it.

Nextdoor Response

We asked Nextdoor for an answer and they paint a very different picture:

“For privacy reasons, we cannot specifically comment on the individual actions of Nextdoor users,” a spokesperson said. But these invitation letters are only sent on behalf of a member if they have acted themselves. During the invitation mailing process, we make it clear to our members what information will appear on the printed letter, including name, street name, and useful information about Nextdoor. If a member chooses to send an invitation, we always ask for additional confirmation. We applied this extra friction because we want to be sure it was a deliberate user action.

There’s also a clear reason the company asks for private information from people who want to join Nextdoor: “ To join Nextdoor, neighbors must verify their home address and use their real name. This ensures that only the real and personal profiles of the people who live there are visible in the neighborhood, ”says the Nextdoor spokesperson.

According to Nextdoor, there is therefore no question that they are just “picking names on the Internet” and the users themselves give permission to send letters on their behalf. Nevertheless, it seems strange to receive a letter from a stranger in the mail recommending a product. And Nextdoor users still don’t have a good idea of ​​what is being sent on their behalf.

A response from Nextdoor was added in an update to this article

–Also read: Misleading letters from the neighborhood app Nextdoor have also surfaced in Groningen