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Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#211

Post by dannyw »

roeschger wrote: post #15

First a disclaimer: I am no lawyer, but I am one of the co-founders of Skribble[0], an e-signature provider from Switzerland. I don't want to go into details but depending on which country you need your signatures to be legally binding and the type of contract you are signing, you might need a higher signature standard than the one you get from DocuSign. At Skribble we offer all 3 signature standards defined by the E…

With all due respect, if you're not a lawyer, you probably shouldn't make suggestions that your solution may be more legally binding than DocuSign.

The same way I'm not going to take any claims from the product manager of a new VPS company that they're more secure than AWS.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#212

Post by jasonwilk »

You can easily sign a document on Preview using Mac for free. Click the Show Markup Toolbar in the View or Edit section. Create and save your signature, then click the signature to add it to your PDF. I’m not sure why they don’t make this incredibly transparent on Mac, other than to help others profit.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#213

Post by RC_ITR »

snowwrestler wrote: post #120
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #24

My guess - DocuSign has a hard to penetrate moat: It's known and accepted in courts. Everything else doesn't really matter. Imagine you're a legal department. You have to choose between DocuSign, which you know the court will accept, or a competitor. DocuSign costs 10x as much as the competitor. But that's nothing compared to the cost of litigation, or worse, the cost of losing litigation. So you will likely choose D…

I don’t think this premise is correct; I don’t know of any evidence that courts accord any special status to Docusign’d documents, over other ways of electronically signing contracts. The concept doesn’t even make sense to me… Docusign is not attesting to the contracts they manage. They’re not an automated notary. They’re just facilitating something that anyone can do themselves: electronically sign a contract. There…

Long story short, google FEDramp.

Docusign is the only current major e-sign platform that works with the federal government (Adobe is applying).

If you have to pick one vendor and there’s even an outside chance you’ll interface with the fed govt, you just choose Docusign.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#215

Post by ivoflipse »

antjanus wrote: post #59
codingdave wrote: post #10

> legally binding way to put signatures and timestamps on a PDF. IANAL, but the idea that a signature is what makes a contract legally binding is not exactly true. It is a symbol of the acceptance of the contract, but legal acceptance can take many forms - so whether you use a service to signify acceptance, or just sign it using acrobat or Adobe's site, or even just a verbal agreement... those are all valid acceptanc…

I really like it -- lots of legal documents I've signed over the past few years are in DocuSign. Which also means that I have easy storage for my _own_ documents. If I log in, I can see the lease I signed 3-4 years ago, the contract I signed last year, etc. etc. Plus, yeah, you get to see if the other party signed, all the appropriate spots for signing are flagged, the entire audit trail of the document. It's super c…

For whatever reason with our enterprise license agreement, we pay $7/set of documents. I assumed it was flat fee, but nope.

We use DocuSign because FDA requires electronic signatures that follow 21 CFR Part 11. A lot of companies will be very hesitant to roll their own or claim compliance if the supplier (like DocuSign) doesn't claim it's compliant.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#216

Post by tthun »

There are two main aspects solved by Docusign - Implementation of ESign Act - there are specific requirements that needs to be met for an E-Signature to be valid, such as Informing the signers of an option to opt out, retention of signature records etc.

- Non-Repudiation features using Digital signatures - this is where Docusign (and hellosign and friends) is clever in using a LTV Enabled [0] Digital Signature on signed documents that allows the documents to be validated in Adobe reader. This IMHO allows them to get around lot of retention and compatibility requirements of eSign act. Adobe Digital signature verification is visual and you don't need an audit of your SaaS vendor to verify that the electronic signatures made will be available to validate 10 years later. keep in mind, Adobe requires a certificate issued by one of the ATL member issuers [1] - this is adding to the moat these companies have.

[0] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26090558/what-does-not-l... [1] https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/approved-trust-list1.html

Unfortunately if you need a digital certificate solution you are stuck with purchasing a document signing certificate from one of the ATL issuers [1] and Digitally signing your documents with a visible signature.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#217

Post by tthun »

dannyw wrote: post #206
jspaetzel wrote: post #200

It's a service every company needs and most aren't willing to build. This is in large part because most companies don't have the security expertise to handle sensitive data so it makes tons of sense to outsource. Even the companies that do have that expertise may not want to invest their resources outside their core business. The important thing to consider is how much would it cost you to build/deploy a solution to…

Also the legal headaches when a counterparty claims that you forged the signature, or manipulated the contract?

if you implement a Digital Signature over eSignature, this issue goes away - both parties can get a copy of the signed document and never be manipulated

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#218

Post by sushsjsuauahab »

Teever wrote: post #210
sushsjsuauahab wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends-- have you ever had something stolen from you, which you then reported to police, after which nothing happened?

No, I haven't personally but I'm assuming that you have. If that is the case did you end up hiring a private detective and security force to remediate your circumstance?

I did not, but only because in my case the monetary damage was not sufficient to pursue it. I would have liked to have seen those responsible be prosecuted for it, though.

If the monetary damage was high enough vis-a-vis the ability of the public system to deliver me restitution for my losses, I'd very quickly be hiring private detectives yes.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#219

Post by sushsjsuauahab »

lostcolony wrote: post #174
sushsjsuauahab wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends-- have you ever had something stolen from you, which you then reported to police, after which nothing happened?

Sure, but that isn't the question. Do you prefer mandatory arbitration to being able to use the public court system? That's a privatized justice system.

Considering that most cases of theft don't end up in public courts? Yes I'd be happy to go to mandatory arbitration.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Docusign a $50B company?

#220

Post by elil17 »

catillac wrote: post #188
elil17 wrote: post #41

If you want to e-sign lease agreements, you don’t need any special software. You can just have the signee type their name in the signature space and email the document back to you. The date of the email will be evidence of the timestamp, and the email records are commonly accepted in court. That’s just as legally binding as Docusign. The reason people use Docusign is to keep track of a large number of legal ageeement…

This comment has “Dropbox won’t be successful because anyone can use rsync” vibes.

No. I understand the value of Docusign. But OP asked for a free solution, and that solution is email. If OP asked for an open source alternative to Dropbox, rsync would be an appropriate answer AFAIk
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