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Temu has updated the terms and conditions of its 'free cash giveaway' that has taken over the internet this week.
Earlier this week, social media seemed to suddenly fill with people cashing in £50 without seeming to have to do anything. The online shopping site created a bit of a frenzy before people began to realise the ‘dark truth’ behind it.
Temu is typically known for selling heavily discounted goods and shipping them over from China. But even those who wouldn’t usually shop on the marketplace were signing up to the scheme.
On the face of it, all it seemed people had to do was sign up and create an account the app, then send out invitation codes to their mates. And then if one of their friends signed up too, both people would cash in a nice £50 into their PayPal.
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So obviously, users were buzzing that they could so easily bag a load of cash.
But then, the realisation was slowly made that the T&Cs outlined how people were essentially giving over some of their data to Temu for advertising and promotion.
The T&Cs originally stated: “Except to the extent prohibited by applicable law, participation in the Program and/or receipt or use of Rewards constitutes a Member’s consent for Sponsor to use and publish such Member’s photo, name likeness, voice, opinions, statements, biographical information, and/or hometown and state for promotional or advertising purposes in any media worldwide, now known or hereafter developed, in perpetuity without further review, notification, payment, or consideration."
And as such backlash built over this, Temu has now updated its giveaway T&Cs to ‘clarify the limited ways’ the company uses customer data.
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A Temu spokesperson commented on this amendment to LADbible: "Some participants in our recent Cash Reward campaign have expressed concern about the promotion’s terms and conditions (T&Cs). To reassure our customers, we have tweaked the T&Cs to make it clear that we only ever use username and profile pictures in this promotion for referral functionality and winner announcements.”
“The previous terms and conditions were overly broad and inadvertently included promotional uses that Temu does not engage in. Customer trust and satisfaction is at the heart of Temu, and we do not and will not sell customer data.”
The Chinese company have now made it clear that it will use the customer data ‘to publish just the name and profile picture of the consumer’s name participating’.
Well, either way, this is still a sign that you should always be reading the small print when you sign up to schemes.
Topics: Social Media, China, Technology, Money
Jess Battison