5 ms·

a court needs to control someone's information surely they know who these people are and they can let them know? I think you have a misunderstanding of what a

by dsp1234 10y ago

a court needs to control someone's information surely they know who these people are and they can let them know? I think you have a misunderstanding of what a US court can do. A court can only tell a specific party to take some action, and generally only if that party is somehow related to the legal action (such as being a defendant). Generally, there is no judgement that a court can make that can effect unnamed parties (unless they are John Does, which later have to be named). Theoretically, you could sue each company with your data, and a court could tell each of those companies to remove your information. But it would have to be for each one, and the judgement is only binding on those companies. Surely someone's gotta be willing to tell? The techniques used are generally trade secrets, and amount to competitive advantage. There is little incentive for a company to reveal this information (or for an employee to do so, and thus open themselves up to legal liability).

mehrdadn 10y ago
What about this though: >> Or when someone wants to start another one of the higher-level companies -- how do they know which core aggregators to buy from? If that's a secret then how would they find out?
- cosmie 10y ago
  > If that's a secret then how would they find out? You don't. I've worked in data acquisition in the past, both buying data and selling it. Sometimes as the original source of truth and sometimes as a middleman that does data cleaning, standardization, appending (from other sources), then selling the derived product downstream. Companies in that space guard their upstream sources quite heavily, because they don't want to be cut out of the process. You won't find a centralized list of independent data feeds and providers specifically because of that. In one scenario, we were dealing with a substantial rate increase from one supplier. We spent time attempting to source an alternate supplier of that particular type of data, and could only find sources that were several months more stale than we were currently getting (i.e. these people were getting the feed several hops after we were). In the end we paid the rate increase because we couldn't find an alternate source that was as close to the original data provider as our current source. And without knowing who the original data provider was, we couldn't go around our supplier. The lack of a centralized directory isn't just done to make things opaque for end users, it's done to make things opaque for business competitors as well. It's an industry that's very, very reliant on networking and introductions. Edited to add: You're also asking a lot of people in here to name specific companies even if they can't give you huge lists. This space is super heavy on NDAs (and trigger happy on enforcing them). If you've actually worked in it, there's simply no way you're able to name drop legally.
  - mehrdadn 10y ago
    +1 thanks for the explanation! And regarding this: > Edited to add: You're also asking a lot of people in here to name specific companies even if they can't give you huge lists. This space is super heavy on NDAs (and trigger happy on enforcing them). If you've actually worked in it, there's simply no way you're able to name drop legally. I understand that an NDA would prevent you from naming your own company or your suppliers and clients, but surely it doesn't prevent you from listing some other companies in this space that you know of (including but not limited to your competitors)? I don't understand why you shouldn't be able to name any company just because you've worked at one of them.
    - cosmie 10y ago
      Every company I know in the space is a company that we've had at least preliminary conversations with (seeing if there's any potential relationship to either purchase from or sell to that company). Just having that conversation required getting a mutual NDA in place, since the conversation involves revealing your capabilities (even if not your sources). And that's assuming you're even aware of all the NDAs your company has signed with other companies, which isn't always the case. Speculation or name dropping in public could violate an NDA you're not even aware of, then you find yourself having to defend your speculation as just that, rather than as revealing proprietary knowledge (that you didn't actually have but your company did). At the end of the day, it's easier to default to speaking in generalizations rather than risk the potential repercussions of not doing that. :-/
      - mehrdadn 10y ago
        Okay, I see. But somehow someone in your company found out about them before they could sign mutual NDAs, right? How does that happen? Do you just need a higher-up who's friends with the right people?
        eonw 10y ago
        i imagine its similar to how drugs and weapons dealers meet. when you know seedy people, you get connected. birds of a feather and all that.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
fragmede 10y ago
> Theoretically, you could sue each company with your data, and a court could tell each of those companies to remove your information. But it would have to be for each one, and the judgement is only binding on those companies. As an individual, that sounds like a lot of work for little gain, but if there were pre-filled out forms, and all I had to do was put in my name, I'd be willing to file lawsuits to get my name removed.
TrinaryWorksToo 10y ago
What about class action? Could you make a class action against those who have sold your information?
- dsp1234 10y ago
  A class action is an action where there are a large, possibly unknown, number of plaintiffs suing a single group of named defendants. With the thought process being that if a single case against a named defendant is won, then that same outcome would happen for every other plaintiff, and thus doing it once saves the court time. What you're suggesting is more like a John Doe case where you sue a number of unknown entities, and that can be won, but at some point, the plaintiff has to name the John Does, so that they can defend themselves.
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    Couldn't you start a class action against one named defendant, and use the discovery process to uncover all the other unknown-at-the-time-of-filing defendants? I'm pretty sure that if the named defendant coughs up an NDA that prevents them from disclosing the names of their business associates to a court, the judge is not just going to say, "I'll allow it."
- justin66 10y ago
  It has successfully been done in the past, so yes, you could do that.
literallycancer 10y ago
>Theoretically, you could sue each company with your data, and a court could tell each of those companies to remove your information. But it would have to be for each one, and the judgement is only binding on those companies. I'd expect going after such companies to be the state prosecutor's job.
kazagistar 10y ago
If there are many companies, surely it would be in their interests to leak one another for competitive advantage?

by dsp1234 10y ago

mehrdadn 10y ago

What about this though: >> Or when someone wants to start another one of the higher-level companies -- how do they know which core aggregators to buy from? If that's a secret then how would they find out?

cosmie 10y ago
> If that's a secret then how would they find out? You don't. I've worked in data acquisition in the past, both buying data and selling it. Sometimes as the original source of truth and sometimes as a middleman that does data cleaning, standardization, appending (from other sources), then selling the derived product downstream. Companies in that space guard their upstream sources quite heavily, because they don't want to be cut out of the process. You won't find a centralized list of independent data feeds and providers specifically because of that. In one scenario, we were dealing with a substantial rate increase from one supplier. We spent time attempting to source an alternate supplier of that particular type of data, and could only find sources that were several months more stale than we were currently getting (i.e. these people were getting the feed several hops after we were). In the end we paid the rate increase because we couldn't find an alternate source that was as close to the original data provider as our current source. And without knowing who the original data provider was, we couldn't go around our supplier. The lack of a centralized directory isn't just done to make things opaque for end users, it's done to make things opaque for business competitors as well. It's an industry that's very, very reliant on networking and introductions. Edited to add: You're also asking a lot of people in here to name specific companies even if they can't give you huge lists. This space is super heavy on NDAs (and trigger happy on enforcing them). If you've actually worked in it, there's simply no way you're able to name drop legally.
- mehrdadn 10y ago
  +1 thanks for the explanation! And regarding this: > Edited to add: You're also asking a lot of people in here to name specific companies even if they can't give you huge lists. This space is super heavy on NDAs (and trigger happy on enforcing them). If you've actually worked in it, there's simply no way you're able to name drop legally. I understand that an NDA would prevent you from naming your own company or your suppliers and clients, but surely it doesn't prevent you from listing some other companies in this space that you know of (including but not limited to your competitors)? I don't understand why you shouldn't be able to name any company just because you've worked at one of them.
  - cosmie 10y ago
    Every company I know in the space is a company that we've had at least preliminary conversations with (seeing if there's any potential relationship to either purchase from or sell to that company). Just having that conversation required getting a mutual NDA in place, since the conversation involves revealing your capabilities (even if not your sources). And that's assuming you're even aware of all the NDAs your company has signed with other companies, which isn't always the case. Speculation or name dropping in public could violate an NDA you're not even aware of, then you find yourself having to defend your speculation as just that, rather than as revealing proprietary knowledge (that you didn't actually have but your company did). At the end of the day, it's easier to default to speaking in generalizations rather than risk the potential repercussions of not doing that. :-/
    - mehrdadn 10y ago
      Okay, I see. But somehow someone in your company found out about them before they could sign mutual NDAs, right? How does that happen? Do you just need a higher-up who's friends with the right people?
      - eonw 10y ago
        i imagine its similar to how drugs and weapons dealers meet. when you know seedy people, you get connected. birds of a feather and all that.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

fragmede 10y ago

> Theoretically, you could sue each company with your data, and a court could tell each of those companies to remove your information. But it would have to be for each one, and the judgement is only binding on those companies. As an individual, that sounds like a lot of work for little gain, but if there were pre-filled out forms, and all I had to do was put in my name, I'd be willing to file lawsuits to get my name removed.

TrinaryWorksToo 10y ago

What about class action? Could you make a class action against those who have sold your information?

dsp1234 10y ago
A class action is an action where there are a large, possibly unknown, number of plaintiffs suing a single group of named defendants. With the thought process being that if a single case against a named defendant is won, then that same outcome would happen for every other plaintiff, and thus doing it once saves the court time. What you're suggesting is more like a John Doe case where you sue a number of unknown entities, and that can be won, but at some point, the plaintiff has to name the John Does, so that they can defend themselves.
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  Couldn't you start a class action against one named defendant, and use the discovery process to uncover all the other unknown-at-the-time-of-filing defendants? I'm pretty sure that if the named defendant coughs up an NDA that prevents them from disclosing the names of their business associates to a court, the judge is not just going to say, "I'll allow it."
justin66 10y ago
It has successfully been done in the past, so yes, you could do that.

literallycancer 10y ago

kazagistar 10y ago

If there are many companies, surely it would be in their interests to leak one another for competitive advantage?