A public service announcement
Your party app was built by alumni of a surveillance company. It collects your social graph, your contacts, your location — and it's "free." You know how that story ends.
CEO Shreya Murthy was a "Forward Deployed" Enterprise Lead in Denver. CTO Joy Tao joined as a Product Engineer after Palantir acquired her social media analytics startup. Per NYC Noise, at least six former Palantir employees work at Partiful.
Sources: LinkedIn (Murthy), LinkedIn (Tao), Wellfound, The Org, NYC Noise, TechCrunch (Poptip acquisition)Palantir Gotham — funded by the CIA's In-Q-Tel — fuses phone records, social media, location data, and communication metadata into relationship models. The U.S. Army used it to map social networks, identify organizers, and predict gatherings. Palantir holds $287M+ in ICE contracts for tracking immigrants with fused data.
Sources: Wikipedia (Palantir), EFF, Techdirt, American Immigration CouncilPer The Cut, Murthy said she "never worked on the government business" and "left for good reasons." Shortly after, she headlined a "Palantir Talent Mafia" fireside chat alongside Palantir's Chief Architect — hosted via a Partiful invite link. A former colleague characterized her reason for leaving as lack of structure, not ethics.
Sources: Palantir on X, Partiful event page, The Cut, NYC Noise"If you're not paying for the product, you are the product."
$27M raised, $120M valuation, near-zero revenue. What asset justifies that price — if not the social graph they're building from your parties?
"We will never sell your or your guest's data."
"We're a small team who, like you, have been burned by companies that farm our data."
"We don't sell your personal data as a source of revenue."
Google Play says: "Doesn't share user data with other companies."
Privacy policy permits sharing with "data analytics and advertising technology services" and "advertising partners" for marketing purposes.
They collect GPS location, device IDs, contacts, calendar data, behavioral analytics, and session recordings of your clicks and scrolls.
"As a source of revenue" is a legal carve-out. Trading data for services or sharing with partners wouldn't technically be a "sale" under this language.
This directly contradicts their own privacy policy, which names advertising partners as a data-sharing category.
Uploaded photos retained full EXIF metadata — including precise GPS coordinates. Anyone with dev tools could extract your home or workplace location. When TechCrunch asked, Partiful declined to name its security auditors, confirm a pre-launch review had occurred, or say whether unauthorized access had happened.
Sources: TechCrunch, TechSpot, TechBuzzTheir ToS grant a "perpetual, irrevocable, sublicensable, worldwide" license to your content — and reserve the right to hand everything over in an acquisition. The CEO's response to The Cut: "That's not realistically something we're planning on doing."
— "Not planning" is not a binding commitment · Sources: Partiful ToS, The CutEvent planning that respects you. Not-for-profit. No ads. No social graph. Your data deletes permanently by default. Built by people who think your party is your business — not a data product.
A Public Benefit Corporation owned by a 501(c)(3) foundation — same model as Signal and Mozilla. No VCs looking for an exit. Our charter prohibits selling user data, and changing that requires a supermajority board vote.
Delaware PBC + 501(c)(3) FoundationEvent pages auto-delete 7 days after the event ends. Photos auto-delete after 24 hours (with host bulk-download first). We strip all EXIF/GPS metadata from every photo on upload — the thing Partiful got caught not doing. We don't build a social graph. Period.
7-day auto-delete · EXIF stripping · Zero social graphPartiful doesn't have ticketing. Eventbrite charges up to 9.9% + $1.59 per ticket. Ephemeral: first 50 tickets free, zero platform fees. After 50, still cheaper than everyone else. QR check-in built in.
Stripe Connect · QR check-in · Free up to 50 ticketsTap a link, see who's going, RSVP with your name. No account creation. No app to download. No condescending copy. A fast, beautiful web experience that respects your time.
PWA · iMessage-native previews · Name-only RSVP| Partiful | Ephemeral | |
|---|---|---|
| Founded by | Palantir alumni | Privacy advocates |
| Corporate structure | VC-funded startup ($120M valuation) | 501(c)(3) foundation-owned PBC |
| Data after event | Retained indefinitely | Auto-deleted in 7 days |
| Photo GPS metadata | Exposed until reported by TechCrunch | Stripped on upload, always |
| Social graph | Retained indefinitely | Encrypted, auto-deleted, never shared |
| Ad partner data sharing | Permitted in privacy policy | Prohibited by charter |
| Ticketing | Not available | First 50 free, built-in |
| See guest list before RSVP | Hidden until you commit | Visible immediately |
| Recurring events | Not supported | Built-in |
| Can be acquired | Yes — merger clause in ToS | No — foundation ownership prevents it |
| Open about seed investors | Never publicly disclosed | 501(c)(3) — public records |
Ephemeral is free, not-for-profit, and deletes everything by default. The way it should be.