Is Profoundly.me really anonymous?

Anonymity and Profoundly.me

Profoundly.me is a facebook app that lets your friends send you messages. While they can reveal their names, more often you should expect plenty of anonymous messages. This can easily turn creepy, especially for women. There have been a few rumors that there are chrome extensions or websites that can reveal the names of the folks sending you anonymous questions or comments.

Profoundly.me uses encryption to ensure that nobody will ever be outed because they sent an anonymous question. However, there are a few important things to remember. Random folks can't just send you a question or comment. You have to be facebook friends with the person in question. This means that if you have someone blocked, even if you both use Profoundly.me, they won't be able to harass you. Folks asking questions also have the option to send questions without masking their identity.

Of course, no information is ever truly safe on the internet. It's entirely possible that down the line their data could be breached, but Profoundly.me doesn't have any systems in place that will automatically reveal users names or questions after a set amount of time. According to their privacy policy though, when you send an anonymous question, it is stored as a question that you asked on the backend. This means that if their database was breached, you could be outed for the questions you have asked.

Does Profoundly.me collect or save my data?

Profoundly.me does collect a bit of data, and uses it in a number of ways. As outlined in their terms of service:

4D. Do you check my account and my posts? You acknowledge that we have no obligation to monitor your access to or use of the Services for violations of the TOU or to review or edit any content. However, we have the right to do so for the purpose of operating and improving the Services (including without limitation for fraud prevention, risk assessment, investigation and customer support purposes), to ensure your compliance with the TOU and to comply with applicable law or the order or requirement of a court, consent decree, administrative agency or other governmental body. We can also block or respond to content that we determine is otherwise objectionable or as set forth in the TOU. In addition, you acknowledge that we have your consent to monitor and block content that we consider to be harassing or bullying."

Additionally when it comes to anonymity as outlined in their privacy policy:

1. If I ask a question anonymously, do you still know who I am? The fact that you can send messages without other people knowing who you are is part of what makes Profoundly unique and so much fun. It means that you can ask things that you might be too embarrassed or shy to say if anyone knew it was you. People may often be more honest when they are anonymous, whether they're asking a question anonymously, or answering a question where they don't know who has asked it. You have the ability to decide whether to ask a question anonymously or on a named basis each time you submit a question to another user. However, this also means that when you receive questions or comments, you may not know who they come from either! Remember, as a Registered User, that even if you ask a question anonymously, our Service will still have a record of the fact that you asked the question (even if we keep this private). If you are a Guest User, we may not know who you are.

2. Can law enforcement get my data from you? We may assist the police or other law enforcement agencies with their requests, or produce information in response to legal process where we, in good faith, believe that such disclosure is required by law, or to protect our rights and property, or the safety of individual users or the public, or where otherwise permitted by this Privacy Policy."

So what does all of that mean? It means that Profoundly.me know who you are when you ask a question, even if you choose to ask it anonymously. It also means that if necessary they can and will hand over that data to the police. However, that isn't the primary reason that they collect your data. They do it to improve their app, and your experience with it.

As long as you follow the code of conduct that is outlined in the terms of service, you don't need to worry about your identity being revealed for anonymous questions you ask your friends.