A recruiter used the GitHub API to pull my email address out of Git commits

61–62 of 62 posts

Re: A recruiter used the GitHub API to pull my email address out of Git commits

#61

Post by delinka » Mon, Aug 12, 2019, 12:04 AM UTC

rubenfonseca wrote: post #59

delinka wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand copyright - you created source code, placed it online, didn't apply an open source license to it, so those accessing it have no right to "make use" of the code. What's the mechanism by which an email address found on a public website shouldn't be used to send email? Who decided on this social policy? I've been on the internet with email since about 1995 and this is the first time I've heard it suggested…

It’s called the law ;) I’m a EU user and article 5 and 6 of GDPR is pretty clear about this.

Bernhardt is a subject of US law. Do you have a comparable US legal citation?

Further, how would these articles of GDPR apply in this case? GitHub makes no representations about keeping your public data private. Please also suggest interpretation of specific parts of these articles that cover the recruiter collecting and making use of public information.

Re: A recruiter used the GitHub API to pull my email address out of Git commits

#62

Post by nfoz » Mon, Aug 12, 2019, 8:42 AM UTC

pwg wrote: post #23

nfoz wrote: post #20

One of the things I hate about Git is that it requires an email address. It doesn't let you just leave a blank value, it needs something that resembles an email address. I get that email is how the kernel-devs do it. But IMO it's inappropriate for the version-control software to link a particular communication mechanism. Sure you can use a fake email address, and many of us do. Finally github has a feature to use the…

git config --global user.email no@email.invalid And git happily accepts the value, yet the result is not useful to anyone ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.invalid ). Or, just edit your .gitconfig by hand after adding an email and change the value there to whatever you want.

Thanks, I didn't know about the `invalid` non-TLD. I've been using example.com.

Still, it seems inappropriately opinionated for git to tie in and require an identifier on a specific communication mode, even if we can come up with fake emails. And I dislike the extra bits of reduced anonymity (eg "correlate pseudonyms by which fake email they all use")

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