'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#131

Post by happymellon » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 2:28 PM UTC

jex_the_ape wrote: post #128

happymellon wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They literally hire someone to be the head of the company, and pay them obscene amounts to set the company culture and policies but somehow they mostly avoid being responsible for bad company behaviour. Prison for illegal behaviour should be applied to the C suite.

That just leads to the classic scheme of hiring a scrapegoat CEO, while in reality the company is being run by a person who technically holds a lesser title.

Once your company is known for hiring patsies the cost of hiring a CEO will naturally increase until it becomes unaffordable to continue its ways.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#132

Post by inigyou » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 2:28 PM UTC

CasualSuperman wrote: post #106

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prison is a limitation of freedom of movement. The equivalent for a company should be the limiting of movement of shares (no shares bought/sold/traded) for the duration of an imposed sentence. Since corporations are people and all, there needs to be an equivalent punishment.

Distribute the jail time among the shareholders. That will get them to incentivize legality over profits REAL quick

You got a 401(k)? Then you have to serve jail time

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#133

Post by ryandrake » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 3:10 PM UTC

happymellon wrote: post #120

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hate this mentality: "We can't possibly regulate companies, because they are so clever and they'll find loopholes and work around any law we make!" So write better laws! Add provisions for loopholes you anticipate. Add wording to remove ambiguity that the company will try to use to weasel their way out. Unfortunately, that is exactly how you end up with legalese and laws that are hard for normal people to underst…

> declare that a mattress on its own does not constitute a bed. And so you remove the mattress from their possession, because they obviously don't need the mattress to sleep. Make it painful for those companies that want to fight the rules.

That's right. We have to assume that companies are always going to do whatever they can to get around regulation. The regulatory system needs to think of companies as nimble attackers in its threat model, and the system needs to be capable of responding with the same nimbleness.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#134

Post by Sohcahtoa82 » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 4:30 PM UTC

happymellon wrote: post #120

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hate this mentality: "We can't possibly regulate companies, because they are so clever and they'll find loopholes and work around any law we make!" So write better laws! Add provisions for loopholes you anticipate. Add wording to remove ambiguity that the company will try to use to weasel their way out. Unfortunately, that is exactly how you end up with legalese and laws that are hard for normal people to underst…

> declare that a mattress on its own does not constitute a bed. And so you remove the mattress from their possession, because they obviously don't need the mattress to sleep. Make it painful for those companies that want to fight the rules.

The problem right now of course is that the enforcers are paid off by the corporations.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#135

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 5:35 PM UTC

autoexec wrote: post #109

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I'd just prefer really huge fines, preferably scaled as a percentage of either gross or net revenue or profit.

Unless that percentage was over 100% of the profit they'd still be making money from doing illegal things and the fines just become a cost of doing business.

Who said the fines had to be under 100% ?

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#136

Post by jamesfinlayson » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 10:50 PM UTC

defrost wrote: post #119

jamesfinlayson wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat related but I remember an old boss telling me that some government departments weren't allowed to specify Australian companies only when tendering for a work, but they were perfectly within their rights to ask for tender applications to be hand-delivered to their head office, thereby making it very onerous and expensive for any non-Australian companies to bother.

> thereby making it very onerous and expensive for any non-Australian companies to bother. It's a good story .. but somewhat silly, Australia is riddled with outposts of offshore foreign companies here to exploit resources, and / or rig the books for others.

Oh I'm sure it is. In any case, it was 2013 and at that point he still had to fly to Sydney I think to deliver a tender.

Maybe it's enough to cut the number of offshore companies applying to an easier to manage number.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#137

Post by singleshot_ » Wed, Jun 17, 2026, 11:56 PM UTC

godwinson__4-8 wrote: post #42

optionalsquid wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every employer would send "We have decided not to continue with your application". That would still be a big improvement over just getting ghosted

Doubtful you would still feel that way if it became the legally mandated norm. The reason ghosting is offensive is it feels so disrespectful and impersonal. How is some bland automated message triggered by a cron job any better? The automated message doesn't respect or care about you, no person would have put any thought into it. It would be entirely automated. If that makes you feel better it is suggestive of a deep…

> Getting ghosted is part of life

Only if you tolerate assholes in your life. Many don’t.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#138

Post by _DeadFred_ » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 2:08 AM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #100

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prison is a limitation of freedom of movement. The equivalent for a company should be the limiting of movement of shares (no shares bought/sold/traded) for the duration of an imposed sentence. Since corporations are people and all, there needs to be an equivalent punishment.

Frankly, I'd just prefer really huge fines, preferably scaled as a percentage of either gross or net revenue or profit.

Going that route instead of fines it should be a percentage of ownership made public. That:

1. Dilutes that shares, punishing the people who can effect the most change (shareholders) 2. Puts the government on the inside. With ownership, the government can then demand access/knowledge that they can't from a purely private company. And no company is going to want to deal with that headache if they don't have to.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#139

Post by BanazirGalbasi » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 1:38 PM UTC

ufmace wrote: post #59

BanazirGalbasi wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting a rejection message, even an automated one, removes ambiguity. You're no longer wondering if you missed a call or an email went to spam, you have it right there in writing. In college, I interviewed with two different local companies that had internships that would continue as part-time positions during the year. Both interviews went well and I felt that the interaction was positive overall. I was confident t…

It's not like job searches are the only context where you can get ghosted. It happens often enough in friendships, social activities, finding romantic partners, etc.

I didn't want to bring up ghosting in other contexts because the conversation has been more focused around the job market. The idea that everyone hates getting ghosted even if they do it themselves is one I picked up from articles about dating, so there is still shared relevance.

Re: 'Ghost jobs' could soon be illegal in New York

#140

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Fri, Jun 19, 2026, 2:41 PM UTC

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #138

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, I'd just prefer really huge fines, preferably scaled as a percentage of either gross or net revenue or profit.

Going that route instead of fines it should be a percentage of ownership made public. That: 1. Dilutes that shares, punishing the people who can effect the most change (shareholders) 2. Puts the government on the inside. With ownership, the government can then demand access/knowledge that they can't from a purely private company. And no company is going to want to deal with that headache if they don't have to.

That assumes that the state is punishing companies for criminalitythat it would also be a good idea to own. While that might sometimes be the case, it certainly isn't always the case.