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Temu Sued for Accessing “Literally Everything on Your Phone”

Temu, the shopping platform based out of China, is in hot water.  

A group from the U.S. has taken Temu to court, claiming the platform is aggressively collecting data including biometrics without consent.  

The Temu app is accused of being loaded with tools for malware and spyware, giving it access to practically everything on your phone: “Experts have found that Temu is particularly dangerous because it ‘bypasses’ phone security systems to read a user’s private messages, make changes to the phone’s settings and track notifications…” 

Yep, your private messages, phone settings, and notifications are all fair game. How lovely. 

Why should this matter to you? 

Well first of all, if you happen to be one of the 314 million people who have downloaded the Temu app, you might want to reconsider if you’re ok with your data flowing sweetly out of your phone and right into Temu’s hands. 

And secondly, take this as a warning to make sure your business is properly protecting and collecting user data and it complies with all privacy regulations. Both of these are critical to keeping your customer’s trust and business (and of course not landing yourself in a multi-million-pound lawsuit). 

Register Your Brand Name (And Logo)

As you begin to scale (which we know you will!) one of two things will happen if you haven’t registered your brand name: 

1. You’ll find out you’ve been infringing on someone else’s brand name (yikes, let’s hope they don’t sue); or  

2. You’ll be unable to register your brand name as it is already taken, though perhaps not actively in use, and so will not be able to continue using the business name that has brought you so much wild success and key brand recognition.  

Building a solid brand once is hard enough. Having to do it twice? Time-consuming, massively costly and heartbreaking. 

 February’s MAQ: What contracts do I need in place as I scale?  

1.Intellectual property assignment 
Anyone that works on building your high-value asset (think software, design, data) should have an IP assignment contract in place. 

2. Employment 
Yes, we all know employment contracts are necessary when bringing in new team members. But do you know that you also need employers’ liability insurance and failure to do so is a criminal offence and you can be fined at a rate of £2,500 for every day the company has traded without it – yikes!  

3. Contractor agreement  
It’s your responsibility to know which of your team members meets the requirements of being an employee vs contractor (commonly referred to as the IR35 rules) and you don’t want to leave any ambiguity (as costs can get hefty) so it’s best you have a clear contract in place.  

4. Shareholders’ agreement  
This is especially critical in start-ups because without it in place there is no control over what happens to the company shares or to the company shareholders! A shareholders’ agreement spells out the rights and obligations of all the shareholders, preventing misunderstandings, litigation, and outright chicanery.  

5. Business terms and conditions 
You want to ensure that the foundation of how your business makes money – supplying goods or services – is clear and set out in your company terms and conditions and doesn’t leave any room for liability. As you work with bigger clients, having bad business terms in place just looks a bit crap.