Evernote Privacy Policy Change Causes Online Uproar

Privacy Concerns and Genealogy - James Tanner

Evernote.com, once the darling of the genealogical community has been going through some controversial difficulties this year. See "Evernote's new not-so-privacy policy will let employees read your notes." The thrust of this new revelation is that the note taking app will let humans and not just machines read and use your "private" data. This new controversy follows a substantial price hike earlier this year (2016) that included a concomitant narrowing of the use of the "free" features of the program to only allow synchronization across two devices unless you purchase the upgrade.

I have moved in and out of using Evernote during the years. But presently, I find too many "free" and just as useful alternatives. Presentations on the genealogical uses for Evernote have been a staple at some of the larger genealogical conferences during the past few years, but newer note taking offerings from other companies are becoming more prevalent. For example, Google has it Keep program Keep.Google.com and Microsoft has upgraded its OneNote program. You can search online for reviews and comparisons between these programs and Evernote. For example see, "Evernote, Google Keep, OneNote – Which Note Taking App is the Best?" from Gizmodo.co.uk.

There are also a whole bundle of cloud-based "free" storage programs such as Dropbox.com and Google Drive, that can store almost anything across all your devices.

This issue with Evernote brings up another related issue concerning how dependent we should all be on one particular program. It is clear that computer programs tend to become monolithic and we become user dependent. Take Facebook.com for example. Once a program achieves a certain level of usage, it becomes the "go-to" program and the only one that anyone thinks of using. I think Evernote.com thought it had achieved that status and could do no wrong. But I am certain that the changes now being implemented are definitely premature. I do not have to reconsider my own usage of the program because I already had done so.