Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

news.ycombinator.com

441–450 of 805 posts

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, capitalism is a nightmare.

Capitalism generally happens successfully in societies with laws. The difference with socialism is the state both defines the laws and decides how to allocate resources, which tends to result in a lot of poverty.

Depends on your definition of success.If one is Thinking of the long-term viability of the human race then capitalism can only be seen as a disaster if you look at it from a ecological perspective.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#442

How is this even legal? How do we make this no longer possible? It seems like we need a new law to stop this unapproved sharing. Did we ever agree to this?

Your employer sold the data to equifax. There's no law that makes your income a secret. I agree it's ridiculous.

Hold the phone. Your employer PAID Equifax (Talx) to take this data off their hands.

source: me, having read the contract at megacap tech firm

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, capitalism is a nightmare.

Capitalism generally happens successfully in societies with laws. The difference with socialism is the state both defines the laws and decides how to allocate resources, which tends to result in a lot of poverty.

And in certain capitalist societies, the capital decides the laws and allocation of resources.

At least in theory, in a democratic society, government should be elected by the people. Unfortunately there never was a democratic, socialist country, so it's hard to make statements based on observation with these matters.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#444
Not sure why salary data needs to be so secret. I think it is important for potential employer to understand how much an employee is willing to work for . For one thing they not going to approach you with lower salary then they know about. This eliminates a set of employers who cannot afford you and save a lot of time for everybody. Employer will obviously offer as low as they can (what would you do yourself in this case) but if you are unhappy with the offer you just don’t accept. It looks a important however to understand your “market value” but this requires getting multiple offers.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#445

How does this work in California given that employers cannot ask for a candidate's salary even through an agent? Does this not qualify? Effective January 1, 2018, Labor Code section 432.3 prohibits an employer from, either orally or in writing, personally or through an agent, asking any information concerning an applicant’s salary history information, which includes compensation as well as benefits. [1] [1] https://w…

It appears you might be able to have this information deleted if you’re a California resident and the CCPA protects your data rights: https://myprivacy.equifax.com/personal-info I’m not a California resident. Can someone who is try and report back? Sounds like a follow up blog post/instructional tutorial is needed if it works, and calls to state and local reps that this should be opt in.

thanks for sharing

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you are very young (read: born after 2011) your SSN can be trivially brute forced if an attacker knows where and when you were born, because those details were (before 2011) mapped onto 5 of the 9 digits in an SSN.

You should assume your SSN is public anyway. There have been so many leaks, and it's not like a credit card where you get a new number if it is compromised.

Because it was intended as an identifier, not as a secret. The financial industry couldn't tell the difference between the two so now everyone tries to hide their IDs.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But, I didn't opt in for them to have this information about me to begin with.

So a new company you are joining can easily verify your current salary with your ssn & dob. Right? They have your history of employers from your resume already.

That's not legal under the FCRA unless you've given them written permission.

Though some companies will do a background check on all new hires (again, with your permission) which would include employment verification.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what crony capitalism looks like.

I think it’s hard to look at what capitalism has become today and say much positive about it. I say this as someone who works in investment finance where we sell semi-rich semi-professional investors the opportunity to become richer by building solar and wind power plants, and selling them when they are fully operational. Which is about as positive as it gets in capitalism in my experience, considering we’re actually…

I am convinced that the way to change the world (not necessarily towards some altruistic nirvana but at least to avoid a dysfunctional, environmentally and socially disastrous dystopia) is by raising our education / communication game towards more honesty and transparency when discussing socioeconomic challenges and less obfuscation inane, monkey chest beating like conflicts.

Already any discussion that centers around "capitalism" is deeply problematic as it invariably takes enormously complex sets of laws, conventions and behavioral attitudes that varies materially (both historically and regionally) and forces it into a binary yes/no universe. You can't solve complex problems with random hammer blows on each others heads.

All of the constituent components of what we term "market democracy" must be examined not as what they say on the label, but what happens in practice. Just as a simple and single example: when politicians routinely enter revolving-door appointments to serve private interests how can we even pretend this is a feature of "capitalism".

The true underlying behavior is cooperating private gangs marauding the commons. It doesn't matter if it happens in ultra-capitalist US or "communist" China.

Re: Tell HN: Salary data is for sale

#450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what crony capitalism looks like.

I think it’s hard to look at what capitalism has become today and say much positive about it. I say this as someone who works in investment finance where we sell semi-rich semi-professional investors the opportunity to become richer by building solar and wind power plants, and selling them when they are fully operational. Which is about as positive as it gets in capitalism in my experience, considering we’re actually…

I think one should not forget that Denmark's society is mostly homogenous. When you have a vastly dominant, culturally homogenous group, it's relatively easy to trust and support one another.

In a highly diverse country like the US, where the average New Yorker or new immigrant will have a completely different culture and world view from the average Joe in Missouri, and that's just two examples out of many, it's very difficult to build a culture of mutual trust, especially in comparison to the level of support Scandinavian countries offer to their communities.

Post reply on HN