Rapleaf is a San Fransisco based start-up company that helps Fortune 2000 companies gain insight into their customers. Rapleaf helps consumers understand their customer’s online footprints.[1] This company collects, sorts, and repackages data about people who spend mass amounts of time on the Internet. Fortune 2000 companies use Rapleaf to weed out scammers and confirm legitimate customers. Rapleaf has built their database by searching the Web, looking for connections, and then building profiles based on its own technology. [2] The overall goal of this company is to weed out all of the bad people on the Internet, while keeping as many good people as possible. Can Rapleaf really weed out all of the bad people that search the Web?
Rapleaf uses a database that contains email addresses. Different Fortune 2000 companies, such as Wal-Mart, will use Rapleaf to send out coupons if you have provided your email. When you sign up for the coupon, the retailer, for example Wal-Mart, will use Rapleaf’s database to look up the customer’s email. Rapleaf, then, uses its database to confirm whether or not the email is valid by checking the email address in your profile. Wal-Mart, will then finally, email you the discounted coupon.
One day, will all of the bad people that try to scam credit card information, social securities number, etc. be gone? Whether you like to think about it or not, there will always be someone out there that is trying to rip you off. There have been bad people since the beginning of time, so what makes you think that over time we can just weed out all of the bad people. The amount of bad people on the Internet will maybe decrease, but it will never end completely. People are constantly getting smarter and technology is growing faster than most people can even imagine. Viruses on a computer, for example, are never ending. Once you get rid of one, there will always be another person that is trying to hack into your computer. Also, people keep creating websites or applications you can install on your computer to download free music rather than just pay $1.29 on iTunes for a song. Over the years, the government has shut down all companies such as Napster, Blubster, FrostWire, and most recently, LimeWire because they were illegally allowing people to download music for free. Most people in the class are probably guilty of doing this. Who would pass up downloading music for free instead of paying $1.29 per song? When it comes down to it, there will always be those bad people on the Internet that are trying to scam you for something.
Rapleaf is a company that uses a database to protect both consumers and customers from the bad people searching the Web. Many Fortune 2000 companies use Rapleaf to protect their own businesses. Rapleaf will decrease the number of bad people on the Internet, especially because technology is growing so rapidly. People rarely change and we will never be able to completely eliminate all of the bad people in the world.
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