When it comes to the location tracking and privacy issues that MoviePass is currently facing, we’re not really sure if CEO Mitch Lowe was really just mistaken or if the company is trying to backtrack after facing severe criticism. Whatever it is, Lowe is saying he misspoke during a recent conference where he said the app tracks users’ location both before and after going to the theater. His initial statement caused a furor among some users who felt that it wasn’t clear in the app’s privacy policy that they will be doing so.
Now Lowe is saying that he was mistaken about the data that the app actually collects. He emphasized that location sharing is an opt-in service for users and that the app only checks the location two times: when they’re looking for a theater near where they are that supports MoviePass and when they check in to whichever theater using their credit card. Earlier this month at the Winston Baker’s Entertainment Finance Forum he said that the app “knows all about you”, even though he emphasized they don’t sell the data to 3rd parties.
Lowe also now assured users that one of the privacy options for the iOS app, “always track”, was never activated and so they decided to just remove it from the options (the other two being “never track” and “track when using the app”. They still want to build a “whole night at the movies” but they will always ask users to opt in or opt out of location tracking. They do share data with exhibitors and studios but it is “completely anonymized”.
As for users who decided to unsubscribe to the now $7.95 / month movie every day (with certain restrictions) fee, Lowe said there were around “half a dozen” customers who did that because they were unhappy with his (mistaken?) revelations. He dismissed it as “not a huge number” and they are still expecting to reach 5 million subscribers by the end of the year. They’re currently at around 2 million.
VIA: Variety
