• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, October 5, 2015

Last Wednesday, the Washington Post wrote about the "terrifying" Yelp-for-people app Peeple, which will allow individuals to publicly rate other people.

No one other than the two developers seemed to think this app was a good idea.

Facebook and Twitter users immediately took to social media to condemn the endeavor, while journalists debated whether Peeple was the "most odious idea" of the year or simply a "bad idea," and lawyers mulled whether the app would face lawsuits. The concept seemed so outrageous that people justifiably wondered whether it was all a hoax.

By today, even the app's founders have backtracked. Julia Corday writes on LinkedIn that the app will be "focused on the positive and only the positive," and would only post comments about people with their "explicit permission."

"There is no way to even make negative comments," she writes. "Simply stated, if you don’t explicitly say 'approve recommendation,' it will not be visible on our platform."

If so, that seems to mark a significant reversal since last week, when the Post wrote that the app will allow people to rate others by assigning them one to five stars and posting written critiques. Originally, there wasn't going to be any way for people to opt out of being reviewed. What's more, review subjects wouldn't have been able to even see what had been written about them, unless they joined the service. At the same time, Peeple said it wouldn't display reviews with less than three stars, unless the reviewees joined the service.

As originally envisioned, Peeple planned to send a text message to the person being reviewed, inviting him or her to join. It's not clear whether the revamped app still plans to do so. But it's worth noting that sending unsolicited text message invitations potentially violates the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

This weekend, Peeple's Twitter and Facebook page vanished, further fueling speculation about the developers' intentions.

Despite the social-media retreat, Corday reportedly told BBC.com that she is moving forward with the project next week.

"We look forward to October 12, 2015 where we will be taping for an exclusive talk show and expose our concept to the world," she wrote to the BBC.