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Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#271

Post by mapt »

hunter2_ wrote: post #163
hypeatei wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In a market-first values system, where we rely on the labor market to largely self-regulate given the promises that free market idealogues & corporate actors made us, colluding on wages like this should lead to scorched-earth retribution from the FTC.

Not "Oh hey there, you're not allowed to do that, stop that", but "We are diluting your stock by a quarter and distributing it to your workers" type shit.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#272

Post by neilv »

mcntsh wrote: post #5

Wage fixing is when multiple companies agree to set wages at a certain amount. Sharing compensation data across companies doesn't necessarily mean wage fixing. Company A can use the compensation data from Company B to try and compete better for talent. Not saying thats what it will be used for, but it's technically not wage fixing.

> Company A can use the compensation data from Company B to try and compete better for talent.

Company A could make offers and negotiate with prospective hires based on the value they can get out of the hire. Rather than secretly leverage surveillance capitalism against the prospective hire, to base their offer on what the person is currently making (and, hey, if lots of employers do that by convention, you pretty much have collusion).

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#273

Post by smabie »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #46

Well, I wouldn't mind getting my wage fixed, if that works both ways, down _and up_, because then I would be guaranteed to never earn less than average for my skill and experience. Assuming, that those things of course factor into the averaging. Person X with experience Y in position Z. However, something tells me, that there is a tendency towards the downwards direction and none towards wage increase. (Background: I…

If you're truly underpaid for your experience and location then you should be able to get a new higher paying job easily. And if you can't easily get one well maybe you aren't underpaid.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#274

Post by oblio »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #214
dsr_ wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make an excellent argument here for tight regulation of the industry.

… and the usage? Most highly-paid people have no idea how much privilege this affords them. You wonder why so many businesses are nice to you? It’s because they’ve already looked you up and know you’ve got a high income and are a millionaire. Write a personal check for your next automobile? Sure thing, you can drive it off the lot a few minutes later. They won’t even bother cashing the check for a week or two. Try do…

> Write a personal check for your next automobile?

Personal check? What year is this?!? :-)

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#275

Post by idbehold »

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…

The freeze is mostly ineffective for when you actually want it to work. From what I remember (even for the credit freezes) is that if you provide written consent to, say, a background check, then that overrides your freeze. So if you're applying for a job (basically the major instance where you'd want your salary information private) they're going to ask for your consent to do a background check and bingo they'll know how much money you make.

IMO this type of information should be illegal to sell or request.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#276

Post by tptacek »

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.

Why would that be a widely understood part of the job description? Almost every American teacher, firefighter, planner, street engineer, health inspector, police officer, train conductor, bus driver, along with the managers, office administrative staff, janitors, and groundskeepers that support those activities are public sector employees. What do they have in common that would suggest they deserve less privacy than you do?

Most of these jobs are not special or meaningfully "public". They're just normal jobs for firms that happen to be public bodies. I don't think it's at all obvious that people are knowingly and deliberately making these tradeoffs by working there.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#277

Post by fragmede »

gperkins978 wrote: post #260
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.

Public servants do not make enough money to be useful targets. The meaningful threat comes from large compensation tied to other asset information (tying an online person to that income, not difficult). You can buy lists of these already tied up and ready to download for your scheming pleasure. From English Rolex robbers to Florida kidnappers, they all enjoy the data. I do not think it can be stopped, but the days wh…

The security minded can move to a gated community, which are all over the place and have existed for a very long time, and don't require moving to Singapore or Australia to live in one.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#278

Post by BobbyJo »

hunter2_ wrote: post #200
GTP wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if we're discussing whose data it is the information about how much I pay you , even from a devi's advocate perspective, you can't do better than arguing that this data pertains to both of us. So we should share the property of that data somehow. I don't see how you could argue that that data would be solely the employer's data.

If I administer a survey, collect responses, and put them into a spreadsheet, is the data in that spreadsheet not mine despite the fact that it consists of things that other people told me? I can't share it without the permission of those surveyed, assuming I didn't promise not to?

These are answered questions. If you are talking about the raw data, you have to get the respondents to agree that their answers become your property (either implicitly or explicitly, there are rules around both), or no, you do not own the data in the spreadsheet.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#279

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

simion314 wrote: post #192
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glassdoor exists.

>Glassdoor exists. you are not allowed to tell anyone how much you make so you might be in trouble if your found out but the companies share this info without your consent. From my POV make it all transparent.

I have had a career spanning over 30 years at this point. I've worked in businesses with 6 employees and F500 corporations. No one has ever told me that I can't tell anyone else how much I make.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#280

Post by yonran »

ascagnel_ wrote: post #242
keerthiko wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the argument here is that the way to do that isn't by establishing a private business that flaunts and undermines those government regulations, but by changing the policies through government process. Obviously that's easier said than done, and SV has a track record of "ask forgiveness not permission" as a successful tactic for effecting policy change. But many times it results in indefinite undermining of…

> I believe the argument here is that the way to do that isn't by establishing a private business that flaunts and undermines those government regulations, but by changing the policies through government process. And to make those who interfaced with the prior system in good faith whole again; eg: drivers who bought taxi medallions for six figures USD, only to have the value of the medallion plummet with the arrive o…

To make beneficiaries whole is perhaps the worst reason to keep a monopolistic system. In the case of taxi medallions in San Francisco, they are technically still owned by the city and the medallion should never have had any private value to begin with; Mayor Gavin Newsom should have leased them to the drivers instead of creating a $250,000 transfer program to give windfalls to retirees. In the case of zoning, ideally we would tax much of the land rent to reduce the incentive to exclude and increase the incentive to create capital. Rents from a government-created monopoly should not be anyone’s ticket to retirement.
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