Where’s Your Data?
Your data has a problem — SaaS.
As Onymos Founder Shiva Nathan puts it, “[SaaS companies] rent you software with their right hand and take your data with their left.”
Just ask Zoom (actually, they would probably prefer you don’t). When Stack Diary broke the news about Zoom’s recently updated Terms of Service the story quickly went viral. They reported, “Zoom’s updated policy states that all rights to Service Generated Data are retained solely by Zoom. This extends to Zoom’s rights to modify, distribute, process, share, maintain, and store such data ‘for any purpose, to the extent and in the manner permitted under applicable law.'”
In only a matter of days, after the rest of the tech world’s collective condemnation (like this one from healthcare CISO Kate Mullen), Zoom CEO Eric Yuan gave a public mea culpa on LinkedIn (the whole debacle had been a “process failure” on Zoom’s part) and the controversial new legalese in Zoom’s ToS was changed.
What happened with Zoom isn’t an isolated incident. It’s symptomatic of a wider problem with SaaS and how SaaS companies manage your data (or, as they see it, “their data,” as Zoom showed us is apparently sometimes the case). Even companies that say they don’t own your data almost always still have access to it and exert control over how you can access it.
And, of course, all it takes is one sneaky ToS update to lose ownership entirely.
All of that’s why Onymos is making software that’s built to be owned (by you). Not only can you license and customize the actual source code, but all of our software products use a unique architectural pattern that connects your data pipeline directly to your cloud. There’s no Onymos-hosted stopover server that processes your data first, and we don’t try to encourage you to use an “Onymos Cloud.” It’s the opposite of vendor lock-in, and it’s the opposite of whatever Zoom (and, frankly, the rest of the industry) is doing.
It all starts with knowing where your data is. If you’re using a traditional SaaS vendor, it might not be where you think. It could be part of their AI training model, in a data breach they haven’t admitted happened yet, or stuck in a format you don’t want on their cloud.
But when you use Onymos, we can confidently tell you where your data is. It’s with you.