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| Type of business | Private |
|---|---|
Type of site | Social networking |
| Available in | English, Arabic, Norwegian, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese |
| Founded | San Francisco,California |
| Headquarters | , |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Founder(s) | Dave Morin Shawn Fanning Dustin Mierau |
| Key people | Dave Morin Shawn Fanning Dustin Mierau |
| Employees | 25 |
| Parent | Kakao |
| URL | www |
| Registration | Required |
| Launched | November 2010 |
| Current status | Coming soon |
| Native client(s) on | Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Samsung Galaxy Gear 1/2 |
| Written in | C &Objective-C (iOS),Java (Android),Python (backend) |
Path was asocial networking-enabledphoto sharing and messaging service for mobile devices that was launched on 14 November 2010. The service allowed users to share up to a total of 50 contacts with their close friends and family.[1][2] Based inSan Francisco, California, the company was founded byShawn Fanning and formerFacebook executiveDave Morin.[3]
In 2011, Morin rejected a $100 million offer for the company fromGoogle.[4] On May 28, 2015, Path announced it had been acquired for an undisclosed amount byKakao.[5]
On September 17, 2018, Path announced its termination of the service.[6] From October 18, 2018, existing users are no longer able to access the Path service.[6]
Users update their stream on Path by posting photos and addingtags for people, places, and things.[7]
Path initially limited each user's social network to 50 friends in order to encourage greater sharing of personal information by keeping it private to a person's inner circle of social contacts.[8][9] Later, Path raised its friend limit to 150 and then removed it entirely.[10][11] The site was intended as a companion to Facebook and other social network platforms, as opposed to a destination website.[12]
Originalangel investor funding for Path was secured in November 2010, from "facebook alumni" includingMarc Bodnick who cited personal belief inDave Morin as his reason for investing.[13][14]
Path's initial $2.5 millionfunding round includedRon Conway,Index Ventures,First Round Capital,Ashton Kutcher,Kevin Rose,Marc Benioff,Chris Kelly, and others.[1][3]
In February 2011, the company raised a second round of $8.5 million in venture capital fromKleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers andIndex Ventures along with Digital Garage of Japan.[15] Path also turned down a $100 M acquisition offer from Google in February 2011.[16]
In November 2011, Path relaunched with more features. By December 2011, it had grown from 30,000 to over 300,000 members in less than a month.[17]
Path subsequently raised $30 million inventure capital fromRedpoint Ventures. On January 11, 2014, the company announced it had raised another $25 million in venture funding from IndonesianBakrie Group,Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers,Index Ventures,Greylock Partners,Insight Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, andFirst Round Capital.[18]Indonesia was the world's largest Path userbase with more than 4 million users.[19]
In February 2012, the company was widely criticized after concerns of accessing and storing user phone contacts without knowledge or permission. In a blog post by the CEO, the company apologized and changed its practices.[20] Soon thereafter, in March 2012, the company received a request for information from Reps.Henry A. Waxman (D-California) andG. K. Butterfield (D-North Carolina) along with 33 other app developers asking them to detail what information they collect from users and how they use it.[21]
In February 2013, the company was fined $800,000 by theFTC for storing data from underage users. The company would be required to have its privacy policies assessed every two years for the next twenty years.[22] Along with the civil penalty, the FTC prohibited Path from making any misrepresentations about the extent to which it maintains confidentiality of its users' personal data.[23]
In April 2013, a user alleged that Path sent spam SMS invitations to his phone contacts.TechCrunch then speculated that Facebook blocked Path's "Find Friends" access due to this occurrence; however, neither Facebook nor Path confirmed or denied such reports. Even so, Path users can still share their posts to Facebook.[24] Facebook also cut off "Find Friends" access to other apps such asMessageMe andVoxer, which were formally cited as competitors to Facebook, programmers such as Montana Mendy contended this notion.[25]
The company was named in a60 Minutes report onInternet privacy and data brokers.[26]
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