The Forced Invite
"You shared the app with everyone in your contacts — without meaning to."
Onboarding step that 'finds friends' by uploading the user's address book and either auto-sending invites or making 'skip' visually impossible.
Same hack. Three very different choices.
Optional, opted-in friend-finding with explicit, per-message confirmation.
Aggregated 'do you know these people?' suggestions without auto-send.
Address book uploaded silently and invites auto-sent in the user's name.
A formula you can steal
Friend-find should require [EXPLICIT PERMISSION] + [PREVIEW] + [SEND BUTTON].
Where you've already seen this
- Path's notorious 2012 contact upload — became a Congressional hearing.
- LinkedIn's class-action settlement over auto-sent connection invites.
- Early growth-stage social apps timed to 'find friends' before the value prop lands.
Never the silent version. Opt-in with clear preview is the only acceptable form.
Anywhere your TOS or privacy policy doesn't already document the upload.
Try the trick today
Read your own onboarding's contact-import step end-to-end. If a non-technical user couldn't tell what they're agreeing to, redesign.
Free Marketing Hacked module included. See more cautionary tales and learn the playbook from the inside.