Evernote's new privacy policy, set to take effect on Jan. 23, would let some employees read user notes to aid with machine learning, although users can opt-out
and once again alarms its users Jeff Benjamin / 9to5Google : Evernote's privacy policy lets its employees access your notes, with no opt out option … Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / ZDNet : Don't like Evernote's new privacy policy? Here are five free alternatives Brandon Russell / TechnoBuffalo : Evernote employees will read your notes to make its AI better Quentyn Kennemer / Phandroid : Evernote employees can now look at your notes, and here's what you can do about it John Callaham / Android Authority : Some Evernote employees can see your notes thanks to its new Privacy Policy Sara Ashley O'Brien / CNNMoney : None of your data is private, Evernote reminds us
Context & Ripple Effects
Evernote's December 2016 announcement landed as a classic trust misstep: a privacy policy taking effect January 23 that would let some employees read user notes to train machine-learning models, with an opt-out rather than opt-in. The tech press response was immediate and coordinated — ZDNet published a list of five free alternatives while Android Authority, Phandroid, and TechnoBuffalo all framed the story around what users could do about it.
Within roughly two days the company reversed course, scrapping the January change and moving to an opt-in model after the user backlash, then followed up days later by promising a customer advisory board and putting the CEO personally in charge of employee access to user data in its early-2017 policy reset. The episode is an early template for how consumer services handle human access to private content for AI training.
First-order effects
- Users face a default where their notes are readable by employees unless they actively opt out — the burden of protection falls on them, which is precisely what triggered the alarm across nine-plus outlets covering the story.
- Competing note-taking apps get a free acquisition window: ZDNet's 'five free alternatives' roundup converts Evernote's trust deficit directly into rival signups.
Second-order effects
- Evernote is forced into a full retreat within 48 hours — flipping opt-out to opt-in, creating an advisory board, and having the CEO personally manage data access — turning a routine policy update into a public governance commitment.
- The reversal raises the bar for every competitor: any service contemplating similar human review of user content now knows the opt-out framing invites a coordinated press backlash and churn.
Third-order effects
- The episode establishes the consent norm that later became standard: human or algorithmic access to private user content for model improvement requires affirmative opt-in, not buried policy defaults.
- For Evernote itself, the trust damage compounds a longer arc visible in its own coverage — executive departures and a 15% staff cut by 2018 in a leaked CEO email, then the 2023 Bending Spoons acquisition and near-total relocation of operations out of the US with most remaining US and Chile staff laid off — leaving it structurally weaker than the trust-heavy category it helped define.
The trend: Consumer cloud services are learning that using private user data to improve machine learning requires explicit opt-in consent, with opt-out defaults now treated as a trust violation rather than a business decision.