Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Yahoo search employees - here is how you can retire with millions

baglady.dreamhosters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 10 posts

Re: Yahoo search employees - here is how you can retire with millions

#4

Post by rawr »

sound2man wrote: post #3

It's also a great way to go to jail... I guess you could feasibly retire in jail.

"The worst thing that could happen is that the Yahoos will be fired"

Some people simply say that they are not a lawyer instead of feeling the need to prove it dramatically.

Re: Yahoo search employees - here is how you can retire with millions

#5

Post by uptown »

This is one of the dumbest blog posts I've ever read. Your employer choosing to do something you disagree with affords you the same rights you had before they made that choice ... to vote with your legs. It doesn't give you the right to commit fraud, anarchy, and corporate treason.

Presumably you were probably hired assuming you could behave like an adult. Act like one ... unlike the author of the blog post.

Re: Yahoo search employees - here is how you can retire with millions

#6

Post by rarestblog »

This is dumb for so many reasons. "Manually rank your site".. I don't think there's even a remote possibility for that in such a distributed system. "Redirect searches"... apart from the obvious unfeasibilty, it would take a few hours (maybe minutes) for people to start noticing and that will hit the blogosphere/twitter's fan. You won't get your comission as bloggers/twitterers won't rest until your affiliate account is locked, closed, banned and server that it was on been exploded for safety. "... let it last for a few months" Yeah, that'll happen.

Don't forget that chances are the guy or team that does the recommendations from the article would be sued for lost profits for sure.

The author talks from a standpoint where he changed a code on a small-sized project where there's no real oversight or distribution, so that it's actually technically possible to modify code to do extremely questionable action and get away with it. That won't work in huge company like Yahoo.

I really hope this article was tongue-in-cheek.

Re: Yahoo search employees - here is how you can retire with millions

#7

Post by forthelulz »

uptown wrote: post #5

This is one of the dumbest blog posts I've ever read. Your employer choosing to do something you disagree with affords you the same rights you had before they made that choice ... to vote with your legs. It doesn't give you the right to commit fraud, anarchy, and corporate treason. Presumably you were probably hired assuming you could behave like an adult. Act like one ... unlike the author of the blog post.

I don't think the author works for Yahoo. I think it is a pretty hilarious idea. It is not really anarchy or corporate treason since if Yahoo engineers implemented this they would be benefiting themselves, and users may not even see a difference in the behavior of the search engine if it's done correctly. Search engine URLs are already very long, and if you are just a normal user would you actually look for affiliate codes? Just think about how many ebay/amazon links you see on search results and you will see that it could work. Is it fraud? Not necessarily since many of these affiliate programs allow people to drive traffic any way they want. It is using company property like the blog post said, though. That could get them fired, but if like you said they should just leave anyway, then what's the big deal?

Anyway, the author did acknowledge that it is very unlikely to happen because the whole team and more have to be involved, but I agree that it would be funny if it did and it would make a good geek movie.

Re: Yahoo search employees - here is how you can retire with millions

#8

Post by pbhj »

rawr wrote: post #4
sound2man wrote: post #3

It's also a great way to go to jail... I guess you could feasibly retire in jail.

"The worst thing that could happen is that the Yahoos will be fired" Some people simply say that they are not a lawyer instead of feeling the need to prove it dramatically.

What he proposes is immoral IMO, but what part is illegal? Possibly a breach of contract, but that's a civil wrong.

Re: Yahoo search employees - here is how you can retire with millions

#9

Post by pbhj »

rarestblog wrote: post #6

This is dumb for so many reasons. "Manually rank your site".. I don't think there's even a remote possibility for that in such a distributed system. "Redirect searches"... apart from the obvious unfeasibilty, it would take a few hours (maybe minutes) for people to start noticing and that will hit the blogosphere/twitter's fan. You won't get your comission as bloggers/twitterers won't rest until your affiliate account…

>>> ' You won't get your comission as bloggers/twitterers won't rest until your affiliate account is locked, closed, banned and server that it was on been exploded for safety. "... let it last for a few months" Yeah, that'll happen. '

I'm sure you can get an affiliate account with a Russian viagra seller (servers and front end in Russa or similar, backend distribution in US or similar, tenuous links). You might not get your money, but it won't be because they locked your account.

Post reply on HN