Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product • Hacker News Board

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#211

Post by dmix » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

sahaskatta wrote: post #205

ethbro wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What likely happened here is a remote team was paid to generate docs with a directive like, “Smartcar has a good API,” and stole them directly. Then the management team didn’t bother checking. If a remote team is writing your API documentation by copying and pasting, then what is the actual implementation team building from?

Hi, I'm the CEO of Smartcar. While I can't go into exact details, I can say from what we know so far: this occurred out of their main headquarters.

Right but the parent's point is its not just the API documentation but the API itself that strongly mirrors your product?

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#212

Post by xenophonf » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #190

jacquesm wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot under 'SaaS' that you could use to further illegal schemes that do not fall under 'chrome extensions'. Off the top of my head: anything payment related and two sided market places (money laundering, false binning), anything that allows large volumes of data to be moved around (copyright violation, child pornography, exfiltration of data from corporate networks), proxy services and spider services (DOS…

> anything that allows large volumes of data to be moved around (copyright violation, child pornography, exfiltration of data from corporate networks) So could Mozilla be on the hook if people used Firefox Send to do any of these things?

They could be on the hook, except the ToS of Firefox Send includes this language:

You hereby represent and warrant that your content will not infringe the rights of any third party and will comply with any content guidelines presented by Mozilla...

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Services at any time for any reason, including, but not limited to, if we reasonably believe:... you create risk or possible legal exposure for us...

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Mozilla [et al] from and against any and all third party claims and expenses, including attorneys' fees, arising out of or related to your use of the Services (including, but not limited to, from any content uploaded by you).

(https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/terms/services/#se...)

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#213

Post by huffmsa » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #59

jacquesm wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bessemer & Co. would not spend this kind of money without doing DD to the point where their competitive review would have snagged the OP's efforts. So most likely they know.

Sounds like VCs need a plagiarism detector for websites (think TurnItIn) to make sure their portfolio companies aren't blatant ripoffs.

TurnItIn resells all of the data you submit to them. Any paper a student is required to sent to the service (it's not optional at schools where it's in place) is added to the dataset which they ultimately profit from, with nothing paid back to the students who own the original IP.

It'd be like YouTube using your videos for ContentId, but not having any avenue for you to profit from said videos. Oh and uploading to Youtube would be mandatory.

There was a lawsuit about this, decided on TurnItIn's side, but I still disagree.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#214

Post by etrautmann » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #44

That is pretty egregious, and its also par for the course. And that is why startup companies go through all the hoops of being "stealth" and having NDAs and what not. There was a German VC firm that was, as I recall, very upfront about this. Clone a successful US company before it got to the European market. On the one hand it is great to have validation of the idea, on the other its a pain to have someone with more…

Also, while I appreciate this is a name and shame, it might help to put your company's name in the title and not give Otonomo the free exposure for anyone who's not going to dig into the article.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#215

Post by amirhirsch » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

save_ferris wrote: post #9

There are zero material consequences for a well-funded startup to pull shenanigans like this. Why should we be surprised this is happening?

Someone will get fired and the company will be ordered to pay $30,000 - $150,000 for willful copyright infringement

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#216

Post by sahaskatta » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:23 PM UTC

novaleaf wrote: post #101

What kind of tools are used to create API Docs like this? I made a dev-focused SaaS and struggle to find a good way to document API's directly via the codebase, so that code changes can be reflected automatically in the docs.

While we built ours in house using a few open source frameworks, we do highly recommend https://readme.io

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#217

Post by matz1 » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:24 PM UTC

Gpetrium wrote: post #152

ChuckMcM wrote: post #44

That is pretty egregious, and its also par for the course. And that is why startup companies go through all the hoops of being "stealth" and having NDAs and what not. There was a German VC firm that was, as I recall, very upfront about this. Clone a successful US company before it got to the European market. On the one hand it is great to have validation of the idea, on the other its a pain to have someone with more…

>The reality is that if an idea is really good, the people who came up with it know it better than anyone and that gives them a tremendous advantage in terms of knowing what is important and what isn't. I have to disagree with you emphasizing this point. If someone/entity manages to get your idea or code, they may be able to sell the solution at a fraction of the cost since their R&D was lower than yours. When the en…

Then can't you too find other investor for yourself ? You have the advantage being the one that come out with the idea to sell it to the investor.

Or heck pitch it to the same investor too.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#218

Post by jwr » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:24 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #44

That is pretty egregious, and its also par for the course. And that is why startup companies go through all the hoops of being "stealth" and having NDAs and what not. There was a German VC firm that was, as I recall, very upfront about this. Clone a successful US company before it got to the European market. On the one hand it is great to have validation of the idea, on the other its a pain to have someone with more…

> its also par for the course

No, it is not. The world would be a much better place if we all started doing what is right. This isn't difficult: stealing and copying API design and API documentation is wrong.

Make a note of the company, people who work there, and VCs who invested. Computers are good at quickly finding information: one day you might want to do business with one of those people or VCs and digging up this information might change your mind.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#219

Post by holtalanm » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:24 PM UTC

dep_b wrote: post #73

bob33212 wrote: post #27

I expected this to be a " I had the idea first" post. But it is actually a copyright infringement post AND makes the offending company look like a bunch of hacks. If they don't have the engineering chops to build an API how are going to handle the ops of it.

Some people built the world's most popular operating system doing just that - copying Java's API.

thats...not the same.

Re: Otonomo, with nearly $55M in funding, is cloning our product

#220

Post by gyaniv » Mon, Apr 22, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

option_greek wrote: post #85

I don't have any data to back it up but majority of Israeli startups have one goal: to be acquired (and are extremely good at marketing them to acquiring companies and investors). So continue your product and in a couple of years time, they would have been acquired and the product put on back burner by the acquiring company.

> I don't have any data to back it up but majority of Israeli startups have one goal: to be acquired...

As someone that worked for one, and knows enough people that work in other Israeli startups, I can tell you it isn't true.

True, some startups get acquired, but no more then any other place (the only difference I see is that in some tech areas Israeli talent is considered very good, so when looking for an acquisition, big corps are probably more likely to go for the Israeli options)