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Didn’t Homejoy Shut Down?

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Re: Didn’t Homejoy Shut Down?

#111

Post by ericsidelis »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #85
gkoberger wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC makes it very clear they will disavow any company or founder that acts unethically. YC is strict about very few things, but this was made clear in no uncertain terms (especially by Jessica). When things go bad, YC always gets involved – even if you don't read about it online. Don't blame YC just yet. We don't know what happened here. Maybe Homejoy went into debt, had their assets seized, and lost control (like wit…

Is this a new policy? Because the company that prompted me to start the list, Zenefits, is still a Paul Graham darling: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/654377298234224640 Or, might be that our definitions of unethical don't match up 100%. I consider spam to be unethical, maybe you just mean more serious offenses.

I guess we all have different views on ethics, maybe I'm just used to seeing spam and tossing it out. I find it harmless now because I'm so used to getting it...but its interesting to see how offended people get when they see unsolicited virtual mail which can be deleted with a click of a button.

I'm actually more concerned about the actual spam in my real world mailbox that USPS dumps 3 times a week, no opt-out button there.

Re: Didn’t Homejoy Shut Down?

#112

Post by sajclarke2 »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #99

From what I gather from the other comments, it looks like most likely Homejoy's liquidator (Nortonsgroup) has sold Homejoy's user data to Homeaglow. Homeaglow copied and rebranded their own tech as Fly Maids to service this user list.

This sounds horrible but is probably likely

Re: Didn’t Homejoy Shut Down?

#113

Post by mattmanser »

Encosia wrote: post #95
gkoberger wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC makes it very clear they will disavow any company or founder that acts unethically. YC is strict about very few things, but this was made clear in no uncertain terms (especially by Jessica). When things go bad, YC always gets involved – even if you don't read about it online. Don't blame YC just yet. We don't know what happened here. Maybe Homejoy went into debt, had their assets seized, and lost control (like wit…

Did YC ever disavow InstallMonetizer? (honest question)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711

Re: Didn’t Homejoy Shut Down?

#114

Post by gkoberger »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #85
gkoberger wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC makes it very clear they will disavow any company or founder that acts unethically. YC is strict about very few things, but this was made clear in no uncertain terms (especially by Jessica). When things go bad, YC always gets involved – even if you don't read about it online. Don't blame YC just yet. We don't know what happened here. Maybe Homejoy went into debt, had their assets seized, and lost control (like wit…

Is this a new policy? Because the company that prompted me to start the list, Zenefits, is still a Paul Graham darling: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/654377298234224640 Or, might be that our definitions of unethical don't match up 100%. I consider spam to be unethical, maybe you just mean more serious offenses.

This thread is about "selling customer data", not "cold outreach."

But since you brought it up, cold outreach for B2B is not considered spam, as long as they comply with the following: https://www.leadfuze.com/cold-email-outreach-isnt-spam-heres...

Not everything legal is ethical, but in this case it seems more annoying than unethical. I hate cold outreach emails and my company doesn't send them, but concluding that YC doesn't care about being ethical because the former president of YC tweets about a company that sends cold outreach emails seems like a stretch.

Re: Didn’t Homejoy Shut Down?

#115

Post by fredkbloggs »

johnsalzarulo wrote: post #65
lemevi wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure them having the details Homejoy promised wouldn't be accessible is a much bigger deal, at least for me it is. If they have it, who else does?

It's sad, but I guess feel like my data isn't really secure anywhere.

It isn't. Used to be that two could keep a secret if one were dead. Still true, unless one is a corporation; they can never really die.

Re: Didn’t Homejoy Shut Down?

#116

Post by jahewson »

ascorbic wrote: post #93
TaylorGood wrote: post #66

Digging into trademarks, incorporations and S-1's is a weird little obsession of mine.. That said, my initial findings are that Flymaids is directly related to Homejoy. Under Privacy link of Flymaids it states "In the European Union, we are Fly Maids Europe Limited, a company incorporated in England and Wales (registration number 8883585) with its registered office address at 14 Whittonditch Road, Ramsbury, Marlborou…

That's the head office of Nortons accountants, who I'd imagine are handling the liquidation. Changing the registered address is normal. http://www.nortonsgroup.com/uk/global-offices

The liquidators have the power to dispose of the assets as they wish, in an attempt to return as much money to creditors (and the taxman) as possible. It's entirely possible that they've decided to try and keep some parts of the company active and have outsourced the dev work to a shady 3rd party. Alternatively they might be moving the sellable assets into a separate company which can itself be sold soon/later. Odds are that the founders weren't behind this move.

Re: Didn’t Homejoy Shut Down?

#117

Post by pbhjpbhj »

phonon wrote: post #57
phonon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also has the same address/registration number as the one in the privacy policy of http://cleanr.ca/ "a company incorporated in England and Wales (registration number 8883585) with its registered office address at 14 Whittonditch Road, Ramsbury, Marlborough, Wiltshire, United Kingdom, SN8 2PY."

Which is in fact "HOMEJOY EUROPE LIMITED"! https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08883585

Cleanr can't be "Homejoy Europe Limited", it could be a trading name of them, but in their terms Cleanr say:

>"These Terms of Service and any separate agreements whereby we provide you Services shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of 112 Bagot St Toronto Guelph Canada m3k1v6." //

That's a pretty specific set of laws!! But it's not then the website of a UK company. FWIW in Europe legislation requires a business to have the business name and address for service on the website.

They also use a @gmail.com email address, which is low trust indicator for a business IMO.

It might be of note that Cleanr haven't updated their Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/HomeCleanr/, since April 2015.

Re: Didn’t Homejoy Shut Down?

#118

Post by icey »

jahewson wrote: post #116
ascorbic wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the head office of Nortons accountants, who I'd imagine are handling the liquidation. Changing the registered address is normal. http://www.nortonsgroup.com/uk/global-offices

The liquidators have the power to dispose of the assets as they wish, in an attempt to return as much money to creditors (and the taxman) as possible. It's entirely possible that they've decided to try and keep some parts of the company active and have outsourced the dev work to a shady 3rd party. Alternatively they might be moving the sellable assets into a separate company which can itself be sold soon/later. Odds…

> Odds are that the founders weren't behind this move.

Are you insinuating that someone other than Aaron Cheung sent the email from the top of the post? That seems... strange.

Re: Didn’t Homejoy Shut Down?

#119

Post by thaumaturgy »

ericsidelis wrote: post #111
thaumaturgy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a new policy? Because the company that prompted me to start the list, Zenefits, is still a Paul Graham darling: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/654377298234224640 Or, might be that our definitions of unethical don't match up 100%. I consider spam to be unethical, maybe you just mean more serious offenses.

I guess we all have different views on ethics, maybe I'm just used to seeing spam and tossing it out. I find it harmless now because I'm so used to getting it...but its interesting to see how offended people get when they see unsolicited virtual mail which can be deleted with a click of a button. I'm actually more concerned about the actual spam in my real world mailbox that USPS dumps 3 times a week, no opt-out butt…

Among my responsibilities is systems administration for hosted services for customers, including email. What is for you a minor nuisance is for me a major time-consuming headache. For instance, even with a top-of-the-line modern mail stack, including SpamAssassin and greylisting and so and so forth, enough spam was still getting through to customer inboxes that I've had to develop additional non-trivial software specifically for dealing with it.

I beat this drum occasionally because I don't want to have to pit my meager resources against the resources of someone like YCombinator who are willing to provide funding (and introductions to enormous amounts of even more funding) to companies that are OK with spamming.

And I'm not including B2B cold emails as "spam", even if they're written as a template, so long as there's an actual human behind them and they aren't being sent out en masse (for example, Locbox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4672162).

Re: Didn’t Homejoy Shut Down?

#120

Post by nacs »

throwaway13337 wrote: post #99

From what I gather from the other comments, it looks like most likely Homejoy's liquidator (Nortonsgroup) has sold Homejoy's user data to Homeaglow. Homeaglow copied and rebranded their own tech as Fly Maids to service this user list.

> has sold Homejoy's user data to Homeaglow

Sold it with credit card numbers attached though?

That sounds awfully.. illegal even for a liquidation.

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