Houseparty Offers $1 Million Bounty To Whoever Proves It's Being Sabotaged

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Houseparty is investigating the possibility that it’s being targeted by a smear campaign, and is offering $1 million to the first person to prove it.

One of the effects of billions of people on lockdown is that some apps and online services are seeing a sudden influx of people who may have never that have used them before. Zoom is a prime example (everyone suddenly knows it), as is Houseparty, the social video and games app owned by Epic Games.

The app is now first on the App Store in 17 countries across the globe, having been downloaded 2 million times just last week. That’s about 15x more downloads than the last week of February.

However, the app’s huge popularity has come with some trouble, with many users (or supposed users) going on social media recently to say that their Spotify, Netflix, and other online accounts were hacked as a result of downloading Houseparty.

Houseparty, of course, vehemently denies this is the case, explaining: “All Houseparty accounts are safe – the service is secure, has never been compromised, and doesn’t collect passwords for other sites.”

All Houseparty accounts are safe – the service is secure, has never been compromised, and doesn’t collect passwords for other sites.
— Houseparty (@houseparty) March 30, 2020

No, downloading Houseparty hasn’t caused any of your accounts to get hacked. Yet, there’s a $1m bounty up for anyone who proves the opposite.

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This has led the Houseparty to start investigating the possibility that it’s falling victim to a paid commercial smear campaign by one of its competitors. The result is a $1 million bounty that will go to the first person who can prove this to be the case.

We are investigating indications that the recent hacking rumors were spread by a paid commercial smear campaign to harm Houseparty. We are offering a $1,000,000 bounty for the first individual to provide proof of such a campaign to bounty@houseparty.com.
— Houseparty (@houseparty) March 31, 2020