RVillage Acquired By Thor Industries Joint Venture, Togo Group. What Does That Mean for the 200k+ Users?
Over the years, Thor Industries has made a name for itself for buying RV brands. With Airstream in the 1980s, Dutchman in the 1990s, and Jayco, Hymer, and Entegra in the 21st century, Thor became the world’s largest RV manufacturer.
But, it doesn’t stop with RVs.
Thor Industries also has its corporate hands in Togo Group. According to a Thor Industries 2020 Quarterly Report, “Thor obtained a 73.5% controlling interest in Togo Group and the power to direct the activities of Togo Group.”
Togo Group includes the trip routing tool, Roadtrippers, as well as Togo RV.
Now, Thor Industries, by means of Togo Group, also owns RVillage.
We have lots of questions.
What Does This Mean for RVillage (and your social privacy)?
Since Togo has completed the acquisition of RVillage, we want to know what it means for data privacy. There are at least 265,000 RVillage users (according to RVBusiness).
A popular function of RVillage is checking in at campgrounds. This feature let’s fellow campers know you’re nearby.
When in the start-up phase, most small social media companies highly value the users’ privacy.
The first question we wonder is, “what will an investor-focused, publicly-traded company do with user data?”
Much less specific location information.
It’s important to mention that Thor Industries has a value (market cap) of $5.3 billion.
Will this mean negative RV quality comments mysteriously vanish for some RV brands and not others?
Freedom of speech has been a major concern on Facebook and Instagram in 2020.
For the sake of transparency, we’d love to know what Togo Group and Thor Industries wants to do with the private user data.
We Can Look To The Past For Answers
The best way to understand the future is by understanding the past.
Has Thor Industries improved the quality of their previous acquisitions, or has the quality diminished?
We have no first-hand experience of Thor’s products before/after an acquisition, so it’d be impossible for us to answer.
However, it’d be a good indicator.
The Future of a Thor Owned RVillage
Since RVillage was acquired by Togo Group what changes can we envision?
I see three different scenarios:
- The website becomes vastly updated, including a robust cell phone app.
- The site stays the same, but you see more Thor ads.
- Nothing changes at all (except Thor Industries owns your personal RVillage data)
Let us know what you think the future looks like for RVillage – tell us in the comments section.
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Not happy what so ever and will be deleting my account. This is just WRONG in all ways possible.
Naa, no longer for me!
I agree. No way will I let Thor into our life.
I think I will just W.A.S…Wait And See…I would hope they would just leave it alone but you know they’re not, elsewise why would they have bought it? Maybe they’re going to upgrade it. Why mess with a good thing? Maybe they’re going to hope everyone quits or moves somewhere else so they can just kill it. Why are they even interested in it? W.A.S.
Why did they buy? In my opinion because they want to market to the 265K RV consumers. I just hope they are transparent in their use of our data. The doc Social Dilemma is worrisome. Congrats to RV Village.
Or they could want comments and feedback on their product to make them better. This is literally what most brands do on social media anyway, besides ads and announcements. Knowing the next big trends is important and why not have good information to make better decisions (that gives a consumer better RVs). You collect my email just to post a comment soooooo…
Facebook has my private data. IRV2 has my private data. Google has god knows how much of my private data. Honestly, that doesn’t bother me as much as potential advertising messing up a good thing. And the benefits I now get with my Gold RVillage might be useful. Wait and see seems reasonable at this point.
If you’re resgistered at RVillage, they already have it.
I’d like to hear what Thor has to say !!!
From what I know as of now, I would never buy a Thor product.
I’ll also wait & see but look what happened to Good Sams.
Interesting to see how this pans out. The email that I received today said that they partnered with togo and updating the website, no mention that they were bought by Thor…
The purchase was public. The privacy statements are available to users. Not sure there’s any reason to be concerned- it’s normal for businesses to expand in their fields.
I’ll take a wait and see approach. As a Thor owner, I hope they use the site to better understand the RVer ‘s needs and concerns. Perhaps to get feedback on quality (fingers crossed) issues or to address challenges and provide tips and tricks? I’ll stick in for a while as there are some many other benefits of the “Village”
Excellent point, used to used the exclusively but no more…the only care about making a buck not the customer
After reading some of the similar comments, maybe i should take the WAS approach…i like many others have too my data out there which isn’t that big of a deal but too much marketing takes place already…to make it worse has my hand on the exit door…
I’m not ready to cancel my membership just yet. I too will wait and see. The email I saw was that they are in partnership not bought out. RVillage has gotten so big it was only a matter of time. I’m not going to jump to any conclusions and again wait and see.
The fox is in the hen house.
I’m not a member of RVillage and am now really glad.
They “claim” nothing will change at RVillage, but since Thor now owns the site and ‘they’ are sitting in the driver’s seat, I wonder how long before it becomes a “Pay” site??