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Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

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Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#221
UPDATE: To everyone worried about their privacy on AngelList: We’re sorry. Thanks for all your feedback.

We’ve made more changes:

1) We stopped using the first-person on all emails. We wrote that first-person notification literally 5 years ago when we had a few thousand users, and we never re-visited it. It was pretty stupid. Now they all clearly come from AngelList.

2) We won’t send notifications to companies when you add them to a project. We used to because the project shows up on the company profile too. But it’s not what people expect, so we stopped, and we stopped showing the projects on company profiles too.

Thanks again.

Dave

AngelList

(Posting at top-level in case people miss it as a reply)

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I will apologize" and "please accept our apologies" are ways to distance the speaker from the actual act of apologizing, but are not the act itself. They lessen the pain of actually saying "I'm sorry". This is not correct. They are the same speech act, at a higher level of formality.

I think scott_s is right here. Also: being more interested in being correct than in actually maximally conveying regret and penitance is not a good look. You're hearing -- now from more than one person -- that looking someone in the eye and saying "I'm sorry." has a psychological effect that is stronger than the mere semantic meaning of the phrase.

scott_s's heavy downvoting strongly implies that a substantial majority find him to be mistaken. That means it doesn't make sense to act on your suggestion ('looking someone in the eye and saying "I'm sorry." has a psychological effect that is stronger than the mere semantic meaning of the phrase [as compared to more formal ways of apologizing]'), because you are more likely to misstep by sticking to the casual form than by using the formal one.

You can easily offend people by treating them more casually than they feel is warranted. A nonnative speaker who has been taught that English apologies come in the form "I'm sorry" is perfectly justified (though mistaken) in insisting on that form; scott_s just has a chip on his shoulder.

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#223

Hi there, I’m Dave and I work at AngelList on our Talent platform. Please accept our sincere apologies for what happened here. Sending an email without giving you a heads-up or control over its content was wrong. Here’s what we’re doing to fix it: * We’ve made it clearer that tagging a company on a project may notify them by email. * We’ve revised the project tagging email to clarify that it’s automatically generated…

I'm speechless. That's an absolutely terrible idea. Are you guys trying to sends us all back to LinkedIn? Any kind of notification is a dead give away you're looking for another job. I guess this goes to show that AngelList is all about the "Angels" and gives no f*cks about the talent. Shameful and sad. Time to kiss AngelList goodbye.

If you have something critical or negative to say, and you have to hide behind a new account in order to say it... 1) sure, that lets you speak as freely as you want, 2) but it means you're still kind of a douche for not personally identifying with your statements.

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you have authorized them to do this under the Terms and Conditions of course.....

No! If an offence is criminal it can't be magically made OK by a contract. I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.

Pro-tip: don't make exclamations when you don't know if what you are saying is true.

The entire point of a contract is to get permission to do something that otherwise is not allowed.

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#225
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No! If an offence is criminal it can't be magically made OK by a contract. I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice.

Pro-tip: don't make exclamations when you don't know if what you are saying is true. The entire point of a contract is to get permission to do something that otherwise is not allowed.

No, the point of a contract is to agree on mutual conduct. The conduct itself is still subject to laws, unless the law itself explicitly allows to be overridden with contracts.

We can agree in a contract to sell you my daughter's virginity, but that does not mean you can actually buy it.

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#226
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, every giving would be stealing. If I gave you something, you didn't steal it from me. Likewise, if I gave you the right to impersonate me in particular circumstances, it's not a criminal offense if you do.

It depends on where you are in the world, but in most places in the civilized world, criminal law does not work that way. If something is illegal, we cannot sign a contract that says it's ok between you and me, and magically make it legal. E.g. if I kill someone, the state will prosecute me for murder, regardless of whether or not that guy and I signed a contract that said it was fine. If impersonating someone is a c…

> It depends on where you are in the world, but in most places in the civilized world, criminal law does not work that way.

I'm sorry, but: no. "In most places in the civilised world" there are these guys called hairdressers and they could routinely - technically - be charged with committing assault causing bodily harm. It's a pretty clear cut (sorry) case that gets trotted out in most any first year criminal law class. The reason they aren't charged is simple: you consent to that bodily harm being inflicted upon you. There are variously defined limits to your ability to consent, especially with regard to duress or excessive harm, but your reasoning is otherwise completely incorrect.

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't make a competing product because I don't have 10 minutes to watch a Ruby on Rails screencast.

The whole, "If it sucks, make a better one," is a terrible argument. I don't want to make something better - I want to use this. It is totally reasonable to expect the people who built this tool/software to deliver with core working functionality.

The poster I responded to literally said he could have done it better. My point is, if he has such harsh criticisms and apparently some idea's about how to fix it, why wouldn't he?

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole, "If it sucks, make a better one," is a terrible argument. I don't want to make something better - I want to use this. It is totally reasonable to expect the people who built this tool/software to deliver with core working functionality.

The poster I responded to literally said he could have done it better. My point is, if he has such harsh criticisms and apparently some idea's about how to fix it, why wouldn't he?

Since you asked "why wouldn't he?", here's why:

I spent quite some time trying to work around the glitches, which I was helpless to do anything about. So then I spent some more time writing up a detailed problem report including screen snapshots of Chrome debugger traces showing where some of the problems were. When I didn't hear back from them, I put even more time into trying to work around the glitches, and found even more, different glitches. So then I spent even more time writing up those problems in detail and sending them in. Then I continued to wait for a reply. And waited. And waited. And so far I have never received any acknowledgement of any of my problem reports. And none of the problems have been fixed. I have much better things to do with my time than to help AngelList debug their web site, and wait for a response before finishing my profile. Now my profile is still in a half-finished inconsistent state, because I went on to more important tasks, and have never heard back from them since then.

The first problem I reported was related to inappropriate unsolicited email that Angel List sent to my former employer on my behalf without my consent, applying for a job at a company I used to work for, presumably with forged headers and first-person pronouns making it seem like it came directly from me:

I added an entry for a company I worked for, XXX, and when looking at that page, I was surprised to see a button that said “[checkbox] Sent” in their Jobs section. I did not mean apply for a job there, and I do not remember doing anything that expressed my intention to apply there — I used to work there, but I’m working somewhere else now. There does not seem to be any way to list all of the jobs that I have applied for (or that AngelList applied for on my behalf without telling me), or DELETE any applications that I may have mistakenly made. Can you please remove my application for a job at the company I used to work at, XXX, or explain to me how I can do that myself.

How am I supposed to fix the problem myself, without access to their source code and servers and databases? Don't you think the ball is in their court to reply to my bug reports, after I've spent so much time unsuccessfully trying to work around it myself and writing up and sending in bug reports?

Or are you suggesting I start my own web site from scratch to compete with AngelList, instead of spending my time reporting problems that I have with AngelList to their team who ignores me, or even spending my time on my real job that I'm trying to describe on AngelList?

Was I wrong to spend so much time trying to work around the problem and writing up bug reports, when I should have instead spent my time watching a Ruby on Rails in 10 Minutes screencast, developing my own competing web site, deploying all the infrastructure required to publish it, hiring people to maintain it, getting the money together to run it, and renting office space? Should I use AngelList to get funding for that, in spite of all its flaws? Or are you offering to fund my AngelList competitor yourself?

Re: Tell HN: AngelList told my employer that I'd updated my profile

#230

Hi there, I’m Dave and I work at AngelList on our Talent platform. Please accept our sincere apologies for what happened here. Sending an email without giving you a heads-up or control over its content was wrong. Here’s what we’re doing to fix it: * We’ve made it clearer that tagging a company on a project may notify them by email. * We’ve revised the project tagging email to clarify that it’s automatically generated…

Why didn't you respond when I asked team@angel.co why you mistakenly sent one of my former employers an email telling them that I wanted to apply for a job with them, and ignored me when I asked you to cancel that application? I sent the message on 29 January 2015 at 11:09 CET.

And then why didn't you respond to any of my subsequent emails with detailed descriptions and screen snapshots of other problems I encountered?

Is it not enough for one user to report a privacy problem, so you decided not to acknowledge my report, but to wait more than a year until it became a huge public issue that caused hundreds of people to delete their accounts?

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