4 ms·

Isn't it standard to open separate accounts for companies? My employers would've never even allowed me to use a personal account or personal email for business

by dx034 7y ago

Isn't it standard to open separate accounts for companies? My employers would've never even allowed me to use a personal account or personal email for business content. In the end, they need to be able to claim the content if an employee leaves the company. Mixing personal and company accounts or even accounts of several employers sounds dangerous to me.

mjd 7y ago
I opened the account with my personal address. Then later, I added a secondary email address to it so that I could post items to my personal account by emailing them from my work email. I didn't realize that Trello would interpret this as the account now being owned by my employer and, in hindsight, I don't think I could have foreseen this.
geocar 7y ago
> Isn't it standard to open separate accounts for companies? I understood that these were separate accounts in separate systems, they just had the same email address attached to both because it was convenient to log into each system from separate workstations - a little bit like using a company phone for a personal telephone call. When one company (Atlassian) acquired the other (Trello), the "accounts" were merged by someone who has no taste. > In the end, they need to be able to claim the content if an employee leaves the company. I don't agree with this at all, and thankfully tort doesn't work this way. > Mixing personal and company accounts or even accounts of several employers sounds dangerous to me. Indeed. This is a big reason why I don't like to create "free" accounts, because I know unless I pay them, I cannot sue them for fucking something like this up.
- rileymat2 7y ago
  Why is payment relevant to lawsuits?
  - naasking 7y ago
    Easy to show you suffered financial loss, potentially also makes for a strong contract violation case.
- pdonis 7y ago
  > I understood that these were separate accounts in separate systems That's not what I'm seeing in any of the examples discussed in this thread. What I'm seeing is one account which started out as a personal account, then the person added their work email to it so they could get access to their employer's data through that account--instead of creating a separate work account under their work email. Now their "personal" account isn't just personal any more; they have given their employer a means of controlling it, since their employer controls their work email. And then they have problems down the road. The solution to those problems is to never attach an email you don't control to an account you want to have sole control over.
ratww 7y ago
When I was consulting it was common for companies to add my professional e-mail to their services, because forcing me use an e-mail provided by them could be used as proof of employment, and that's something they didn't want. They used to create an account using my professional contact email without asking, of course, and it would give me all sorts of problems with some SaaS services. Stuff similar to the ones in this post. Most of the time it was harmless (I'd lose access to another client), but it was always a headache. The middle-of-the-road solution for me was to nicely ask them to remove it and use something like companyname@mydomain.com. Of course the @mydomain.com solution didn't work for long as well (thanks, Salesforce), so I started using throwaway Google Accounts.
- FeepingCreature 7y ago
  > They used to create an account using my professional contact email without asking, of course I don't understand how this is an issue. Just don't confirm the account. Or are there SaaS platforms where you can add users with arbitrary emails without confirmation?
  - ratww 7y ago
    > Or are there SaaS platforms where you can add users with arbitrary emails without confirmation? In my experience, yes! But the problem is not so much them adding without asking, it's the fact that the SaaS companies are making random assumptions regarding who owns the email account, or who owns the domain name of those accounts, and not letting users know that before accepting. Apparently only gmail/hotmail/yahoo are safe, unfortunately.
  - tomerv 7y ago
    Of course there are! And it's all part of SV culture. A few years ago I tried to sign up to LinkedIn only to find out I already have an account. But it was not my account - it was someone else's, who has a similar name (and apparently thought my email address was his? I don't know...). I could reset the password and log in to his account. I was a bit scared when I contacted LinkedIn support, because I was worried they would accuse me of hacking. Eventually they disconnected my email from his account. Now, I know that LinkedIn isn't a SaaS platform, but you would think that such a big company wouldn't make such rookie mistakes. Even if they launched without email confirmation, and added it later, there should be some mechanism to "fix" the old accounts.

by dx034 7y ago

mjd 7y ago

I opened the account with my personal address. Then later, I added a secondary email address to it so that I could post items to my personal account by emailing them from my work email. I didn't realize that Trello would interpret this as the account now being owned by my employer and, in hindsight, I don't think I could have foreseen this.

geocar 7y ago

> Isn't it standard to open separate accounts for companies? I understood that these were separate accounts in separate systems, they just had the same email address attached to both because it was convenient to log into each system from separate workstations - a little bit like using a company phone for a personal telephone call. When one company (Atlassian) acquired the other (Trello), the "accounts" were merged by someone who has no taste. > In the end, they need to be able to claim the content if an employee leaves the company. I don't agree with this at all, and thankfully tort doesn't work this way. > Mixing personal and company accounts or even accounts of several employers sounds dangerous to me. Indeed. This is a big reason why I don't like to create "free" accounts, because I know unless I pay them, I cannot sue them for fucking something like this up.

rileymat2 7y ago
Why is payment relevant to lawsuits?
- naasking 7y ago
  Easy to show you suffered financial loss, potentially also makes for a strong contract violation case.
pdonis 7y ago
> I understood that these were separate accounts in separate systems That's not what I'm seeing in any of the examples discussed in this thread. What I'm seeing is one account which started out as a personal account, then the person added their work email to it so they could get access to their employer's data through that account--instead of creating a separate work account under their work email. Now their "personal" account isn't just personal any more; they have given their employer a means of controlling it, since their employer controls their work email. And then they have problems down the road. The solution to those problems is to never attach an email you don't control to an account you want to have sole control over.

ratww 7y ago

When I was consulting it was common for companies to add my professional e-mail to their services, because forcing me use an e-mail provided by them could be used as proof of employment, and that's something they didn't want. They used to create an account using my professional contact email without asking, of course, and it would give me all sorts of problems with some SaaS services. Stuff similar to the ones in this post. Most of the time it was harmless (I'd lose access to another client), but it was always a headache. The middle-of-the-road solution for me was to nicely ask them to remove it and use something like companyname@mydomain.com. Of course the @mydomain.com solution didn't work for long as well (thanks, Salesforce), so I started using throwaway Google Accounts.

FeepingCreature 7y ago
> They used to create an account using my professional contact email without asking, of course I don't understand how this is an issue. Just don't confirm the account. Or are there SaaS platforms where you can add users with arbitrary emails without confirmation?
- ratww 7y ago
  > Or are there SaaS platforms where you can add users with arbitrary emails without confirmation? In my experience, yes! But the problem is not so much them adding without asking, it's the fact that the SaaS companies are making random assumptions regarding who owns the email account, or who owns the domain name of those accounts, and not letting users know that before accepting. Apparently only gmail/hotmail/yahoo are safe, unfortunately.
- tomerv 7y ago
  Of course there are! And it's all part of SV culture. A few years ago I tried to sign up to LinkedIn only to find out I already have an account. But it was not my account - it was someone else's, who has a similar name (and apparently thought my email address was his? I don't know...). I could reset the password and log in to his account. I was a bit scared when I contacted LinkedIn support, because I was worried they would accuse me of hacking. Eventually they disconnected my email from his account. Now, I know that LinkedIn isn't a SaaS platform, but you would think that such a big company wouldn't make such rookie mistakes. Even if they launched without email confirmation, and added it later, there should be some mechanism to "fix" the old accounts.