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Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

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Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#351

Post by Simon_O_Rourke »

denzil wrote: post #262
ajxs wrote: post #197

Are there equivalent services that broker data of citizens in other countries? As a non-American, my layperson understanding of American legislation is that it's extremely lax when it comes to protecting individuals from privacy invasions like this. Is anyone aware of laws in the EU/Canada/Australia that would prevent this kind of thing happening?

From what I read in EU the pay is considered personal information and is thus is protected by GDPR. If your employer wanted to share it with 3rd party for something like this, he would need your explicit approval for it.

Exactly this, plus you'd have the right at any time to inspect your own data, or withdraw permissions at any time.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#352

Post by Pixeleen »

wuschel wrote: post #340
Pixeleen wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit, bank checking (ChexSystems), and personal information aggregators like Lexis Nexis and Thomson Reuters Clear ought to be abolished or curbed indeed. I hate to bring trans politics into this. I'm sure that's the last thing anybody wants to hear about right now. However we are a class of people whose sexuality can be unfairly identified by these databases.

Out of curiosity, what happens if you use a free credit card e.g Barclays? Does living in the EU zone protect you? Do they have access to your bank account information?

I'm not familiar with the Barclay card. MasterCard has a service called True Name that lets you put whatever you want on your card. It's proprietary but I don't know if they keep it between the two of you. European countries have much stronger privacy protections, though they might have social security numbers which contain sex as an even/odd digit, and it's difficult to change. Checking account numbers are listed in these systems. Banks guard client account line items closely, although in the US the government has blanket access without a warrant.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#355

Post by eyelidlessness »

Graa wrote: post #345
hijinks wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the issue really isn't that it shouldn't be public. The issue is this service allows your new company to request your history so they can see your past salary. So you lose 100% of your negotiating power if they know how much you made and you don't know their ceiling.

At the risk of sounding naive and unrealistic, one could say your negotiating power should be based on the value your abilities add to a company. If we'd all share our income, we might create a union type of construction from which we can deduce a fair price for our services.

At the risk of not sounding naive, we could form an actual union.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#356

Post by bagels »

realist39827 wrote: post #104

Yes, it's concerning, but let's be realistic about this. I'm surprised HN readers are so surprised by this! On a scale of Room 641A ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A ) to carriers divulging location when you enter somebody's phone number ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17081684 ), I'd say this is 2/10 bad. This really has nothing to do with employers colluding and trying to keep salaries low. Instead,…

Do you have access to the employer side? It's not obvious what they need besides money to view your data.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#357

Post by gostsamo »

dumpsterdiver wrote: post #322
gostsamo wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those were example numbers. The key part is the asimetric information: the new company knows your rock bottom, while you have no way to know their upper limit.

Yeah, I get it, and you're not wrong - you'll probably end up with a higher salary operating that way. It's just not for me. I've already reached my "good enough" salary (the hard way), and at this point I'm more focused on what I can give back.

I still carry the trauma from a previous exployer1 and though I pretty like my current one, the relationship is regularly reevaluated.

1. this was an honest typo in the beginning, but reading it I decided that it is a right one.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#358

Post by exdsq »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #325
exdsq wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of interest what’s your cv look like for that rate?

It’s what I’ve charged for consulting and I only have 3.5 years of experience since graduating college. I’m salaried now, though. Salary is $200k/yr with 1% stake in the company (0.5% early exercised - nothing vested yet).

Edit: I’d be keen to know what sort of consulting you do? :)

Edit 2: removed my personal salary and share options because this account is public

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