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Coding Cloud Heroku May Face Lawsuit Over Bait-and-Switch Claims

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Re: Coding Cloud Heroku May Face Lawsuit Over Bait-and-Switch Claims

#31

Post by [deleted] »

jaggederest wrote: post #28
tomlemon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Heroku wasn't providing enough performance for their money (regardless of technical cause), then why did they stick around so long? We didn't know how bad the performance was because Heroku's tools (logs and New Relic) reported incorrect performance data (i.e., they said requests weren't queuing when they were actually spending a ton of time queuing) EDIT: > Would Rap Genius still have sued if the documentation…

New Relic isn't Heroku's tool, man. It's like a car dealership selling you a Pioneer stereo.

[deleted]

Re: Coding Cloud Heroku May Face Lawsuit Over Bait-and-Switch Claims

#32

Post by chubot »

rdl wrote: post #30
chubot wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, why? I was one of many plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against EA (which was settled in our favor). That did not help EA's image at all :) It looks pretty bad when your customers complain about problems that are hidden by your own monitoring tools, and then you tell them to buy more crap to fix it! It's not a small amount either -- as mentioned the queuing time was larger than the request time. And on top of…

Even people who have been somewhat screwed by this issue with Heroku tend to love Heroku; Salesforce could make this right with generous payouts to affected people and 2-6mo of engineering to offer a better load balancer as a service (Actually, I think I could build this as a third party provider, even) EA is basically a lost cause; their business model and culture is the problem. Having better sacks at Dachau wouldn…

Well that's what they should have done BEFORE the threat of class action lawsuit. It makes them look at a lot worse if it happens after.

I'm pretty surprised they didn't offer refunds already. It was pretty clear they were asked for, and with no update by now, it's safe to say they were refused. That seems unreasonable to me. If you were in the position RapGenius, would you honestly not have expected a refund already?

Re: Coding Cloud Heroku May Face Lawsuit Over Bait-and-Switch Claims

#33

Post by incongruity »

kyrra wrote: post #6
redthrowaway wrote: post #2

>Heroku declined our request for further comment. “Unfortunately, we can’t publicly comment on legal matters,” said spokeswoman Dana Oshiro in an email. “Heroku is committed to our customers’ success and focused on delivering the best possible product and experience. We’ll continue to update our customers via our blog.” I don't run a company, and I'm not responsible for maximizing return on my shareholders' investmen…

Seeing that there is a website/lawfirm[1] threatening legal action, I can bet Heroku/Salesforce lawyers jumped on that ASAP and let all their employees that are allowed to talk publicly not to comment on the issue anymore. The US legal system is setup that if a company admits fault in something like this, it makes defending yourself much more difficult. Meaning if a lawsuit is brought about, it's not about proving in…

In the grand scheme of things, this is why it's always better to defect in the simplified idea game of the prisoner's dilemma. Collaboration is rarely rewarded once lawyers get anywhere near an issue and opting to collaborate (i.e.: admit fault and try to fix it) more or less wins you no points in court, in the U.S.

Given that each possible liability is its own case and stands on its own merits, it pretty much matches the simplest case of the prisoner's dilemma perfectly, IMHO... and so here we are. Sadly.

Re: Coding Cloud Heroku May Face Lawsuit Over Bait-and-Switch Claims

#34

Post by potatolicious »

eli wrote: post #4

IANAL, but my understanding is that threatening a class action lawsuit is easy, but actually bringing an action to court is extremely difficult. And (at least to me) this seems like an awfully weak case -- I don't see any obvious or intentional fraud. The whole thing seems strange to me. I don't really understand what Rap Genius hopes to gain here. If Heroku wasn't providing enough performance for their money (regard…

> "I don't really understand what Rap Genius hopes to gain here."

Rap Genius isn't the ones doing the suing. Rap Genius wrote about it, which caused Heroku to come clean. I think Rap Genius already got what they hoped to get (i.e., exposure, official comment, etc).

> "I don't see any obvious or intentional fraud."

You don't need intent to be sued - you only need to have caused damages to the plaintiffs. What Heroku has effectively done was:

1 - misrepresented their product in a substantial way.

2 - "overcharged" their customers substantially by giving them less performance than they paid for.

Both of these are material damages, and there's a more than reasonable case for Heroku's customers to recover this money.

This isn't a criminal case here, there doesn't even have to be fraud (as defined in the criminal law context).

Re: Coding Cloud Heroku May Face Lawsuit Over Bait-and-Switch Claims

#35

Post by rayiner »

kyrra wrote: post #6
redthrowaway wrote: post #2

>Heroku declined our request for further comment. “Unfortunately, we can’t publicly comment on legal matters,” said spokeswoman Dana Oshiro in an email. “Heroku is committed to our customers’ success and focused on delivering the best possible product and experience. We’ll continue to update our customers via our blog.” I don't run a company, and I'm not responsible for maximizing return on my shareholders' investmen…

Seeing that there is a website/lawfirm[1] threatening legal action, I can bet Heroku/Salesforce lawyers jumped on that ASAP and let all their employees that are allowed to talk publicly not to comment on the issue anymore. The US legal system is setup that if a company admits fault in something like this, it makes defending yourself much more difficult. Meaning if a lawsuit is brought about, it's not about proving in…

The US legal system isn't really set up any particular way with regard to first party admissions. It's just a statement that can be introduced into evidence like any other. Indeed, usually when they are treated specially it's to make them non-admissible. E.g. in an accident, your offer to pay the injured party's medical bills can't be introduced as evidence of fault.

The reason lawyers tell people to clam up is because jurors put great weight on what people say about their own actions. It's precisely the other edge of the sword of what you're talking about--a positive public statement can have a great effect on customers, but one that comes out wrong can have a very bad effect on jurors when the plaintiff brings it up in court.

Re: Coding Cloud Heroku May Face Lawsuit Over Bait-and-Switch Claims

#36

Post by danso »

redthrowaway wrote: post #2

>Heroku declined our request for further comment. “Unfortunately, we can’t publicly comment on legal matters,” said spokeswoman Dana Oshiro in an email. “Heroku is committed to our customers’ success and focused on delivering the best possible product and experience. We’ll continue to update our customers via our blog.” I don't run a company, and I'm not responsible for maximizing return on my shareholders' investmen…

> Yes, admitting wrongdoing may open you up to legal liability. But it seems to me that, in the long run, it's far better to take your licks and own up to your mistakes than to hide behind the shield of pending litigation.

This is an admirable, well-intentioned perspective, but it is one that won't net you much benefit, not even in the long run.

Filing legal papers -- or, in this case, raising the banner for a class-action -- is serious business. By the time it happens, the time for defusing the situation and calling a truce is long past. The only opinion that matters is that of the judge and/or jury. And let's face it, being the loser in court is going to have far more impact on the public's opinion of the defendant than any honest-from-the-heart statement or outreach.

So with that said, there is nothing of substance that the defendant can say that will help them in court. The opposing attorney is not going to say, "Well, I was going to grill you, but I've had a change of heart ever since reading that impassioned, honest, salt-of-the-earth statement you released pre-trial". The judge won't care either. And the jurors aren't supposed to even be aware of it.

I think a civil trial is not much different than the situation portrayed in the famous "Don't talk to police" video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc

The people you're facing in court don't care that you've made an effort, post-lawsuit-filing, to be upfront and friendly. Anything you say will not help you, it can only hurt you. In this case, Heroku's reticence in speaking their mind outside of court is the right one.

Re: Coding Cloud Heroku May Face Lawsuit Over Bait-and-Switch Claims

#37

Post by rayiner »

eli wrote: post #4

IANAL, but my understanding is that threatening a class action lawsuit is easy, but actually bringing an action to court is extremely difficult. And (at least to me) this seems like an awfully weak case -- I don't see any obvious or intentional fraud. The whole thing seems strange to me. I don't really understand what Rap Genius hopes to gain here. If Heroku wasn't providing enough performance for their money (regard…

A civil suit doesn't mean "you're a bad person." It means "we're not square." If you sold something with certain parameters and delivered less, even if you did it on accident you're not square with your customers, and even if your customer didn't notice you're not square with them.

Re: Coding Cloud Heroku May Face Lawsuit Over Bait-and-Switch Claims

#38

Post by rayiner »

LAMike wrote: post #7

On one hand the Rap Genius expose seemed like they got duped and mislead, but on the other hand something about this lawyer mentioned in the article comes off as ambulance-chase-y to me.

Class action lawyering usually sound ambulance chasey, because any given person doesn't lose that much in a given instance and so the actual people harmed have little incentive to sue.

At the same time, it's an edge case in the economy. If you harm a large number of people a small amount, they won't sue you to recover for their injury.

Re: Coding Cloud Heroku May Face Lawsuit Over Bait-and-Switch Claims

#39

Post by kordless »

w-ll wrote: post #29
bridgeyman wrote: post #15

In MIT's Mathematics for Computer Scientists course (6.042), I remember learning from Tom Leighton that in certain cases randomly distributing jobs actually IS the optimal solution to load balancing. This technique was somehow associated with Akamai, Professor Leighton's company. Maybe I am misremembering...

I dont know, but I would assume it has to deal with the fact you can't predict how long a job will take to complete, and a random selection would have more resources-more free-more often, verses FIFO where a group of really large tasks could halt everything.

That's exactly correct. Given jobs cleared out quick, that wouldn't necessarily be the case.

Re: Coding Cloud Heroku May Face Lawsuit Over Bait-and-Switch Claims

#40

Post by pyre »

drucken wrote: post #21
citricsquid wrote: post #3

If the decisions made by Heroku to misrepresent the product were made prior to the Salesforce acquisition (December 2010) do the founders of Heroku have any liability? Would this sort of thing be a consideration with an acquisition?

It would have been an issue for the acquirer before or during acquisition, if it were present at the time, of course. Some, perhaps many, investors into startups also insist on liability insurance. But the founders of Heroku have no more liability than the company in control of its assets, which in almost all cases would be some sort of Limited Liability vehicle.

I think the parent was asking if SalesForce could pursue the Heroku founders for some sort of liability (i.e. misrepresenting the company during the purchase).
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