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Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#161

Post by wing-_-nuts »

hypeatei wrote: post #136
SoftTalker wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't ever work in the public sector then. Your salary is public record, open to anyone who is curious enough to look.

I think that's widely understood and part of the job description of being a public servant. What's not widely understood is HR secretly selling your data while working at a private company.

Yeah I used to work for the navy. Pay was standardized under the GS pay schedule and anybody could have looked that up. I was fine with that.

In the private sector, your comp is determined by a negotiation undermined by an asymmetric information disparity. HR at a hiring company has way more information around market comp as it is without having your exact current comp when they make an offer.

What I find particularly egregious about this is that management at this company had admonished me that my comp was 'confidential' and that I shouldn't discuss it, while simultaneously selling it to equifax.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#162

Post by __loam »

yonran wrote: post #146
fwip wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many things a government does would be illegal if private companies did them. For example, prison, the draft, and taxes. The government is allowed to do it because we (as a society) believe it's better for the government to do these things than private individuals or companies.

Can you give examples of the topic at hand, price fixing, that are justified? There are a handful of progressive forms of price fixing (e.g. minimum wage laws), but many others should be added to the Niskanen Center’s list of bad regulations in the Captured Economy.

Utilities that trend towards natural monopolies due to high barriers to entry like water and electricity infrastructure are often run by the government or heavily regulated because pricing would be extortionate if the market were allowed to set prices.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#163

Post by hunter2_ »

hypeatei wrote: post #136
SoftTalker wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't ever work in the public sector then. Your salary is public record, open to anyone who is curious enough to look.

I think that's widely understood and part of the job description of being a public servant. What's not widely understood is HR secretly selling your data while working at a private company.

> your data

Is it yours though? The employer could probably argue that it's theirs. Devil's advocate: I think it's widely understood that entities can be transparent with their data if they choose, other than NDA scenarios.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#164

Post by __loam »

billjings wrote: post #132

As described, it is a fair ways away from what RealPage is doing. Specifically: * RealPage sells raising rents, not just market info. * RealPage pressures clients into taking their higher rents. * RealPage also pressure clients to refuse to rent at lower rates for their own narrow economic interest - in other words, they actively seek to circumvent competitive pressure to keep rents high. (edit: to clarify, I mean th…

What's the point of getting this data if it's not to pay less money? What is the value add?

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#165

Post by shortrounddev2 »

Sharing data about wages, I think, is not wage-fixing. Agreeing not to go higher than a particular wage is. What got RealPage into trouble was the fact that, in order to use the system, you HAD to use their algorithm for selecting rental prices. You entered into a legal agreement not to compete on the prices that RealPage provided.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#166

Post by lisnake »

Havoc wrote: post #101
failuser wrote: post #89

Uber and AirBnb are essentially illegal taxi and illegal hotel services. Remember taxi medallions? Remember zoning laws? Being illegal is not a showstopper for a startup because they are under a radar, being illegal is not a problem for a large business because they have enough power to not get prosecuted.

Eric Schmidt echoed similar sentiment in his recent interview. Basically do it, if startup fails then it doesn’t matter. If it succeeds then lawyers can sort it out.

Didn't work for Elizabeth Holmes

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#167

Post by danielmarkbruce »

__loam wrote: post #164
billjings wrote: post #132

As described, it is a fair ways away from what RealPage is doing. Specifically: * RealPage sells raising rents, not just market info. * RealPage pressures clients into taking their higher rents. * RealPage also pressure clients to refuse to rent at lower rates for their own narrow economic interest - in other words, they actively seek to circumvent competitive pressure to keep rents high. (edit: to clarify, I mean th…

What's the point of getting this data if it's not to pay less money? What is the value add?

To pay more money.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#169

Post by yonran »

jmward01 wrote: post #144
yonran wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically for a question about antitrust price fixing you just named two incumbent government-sanctioned cartels (zoning and taxi medallions) that restrict supply and keep prices high. They would be illegal if private companies made them.

> They would be illegal if private companies made them. A lot of things governments do would be illegal if private companies did them. Are you arguing that governments shouldn't have special abilities that companies can't have? Should every road be owned by a company? Should the police report to Amazon instead of the local municipality where you may actually have a say in how they are run? We give governments additio…

I’m saying that government regulations that fix prices should be scrutinized and repealed if they reduce opportunity for ordinary people. Such as zoning codes that price out the poor.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#170

Post by abhisharma2 »

atrettel wrote: post #115

I have never heard of Pave before, but this just sounds like yet another copy of Equifax's "The Work Number" [1]. Basically, HR at many companies gives your salary and employment history data to Equifax, who then sells access to the information to certain parties with supposed need to access it, including potential and current employers and creditors. This report is likely one of the most invasive consumer files out…

In case folks want to quickly know how to start a freeze, heres the info from the website:

To communicate a freeze request, send an email to the address below requesting a Freeze Placement Form: TWNFreeze@equifax.com

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