27 ms·

Tell HN: Interviewed with Triplebyte? Your profile is about to become public

• ruperp 6y ago
  Seems like an unfortunate decision. Opt-in would have been the more respectable move here.
  • pmiller2 6y ago
    Maybe, but, depending on how it's implemented, these profiles might technically be "public" but not indexed by Google or have easily guessed URLs. In any case, it seems like the only information this would leak beyond what would be on a LinkedIn profile is the fact that you've taken a TripleByte assessment and done well. That seems pretty innocuous.
    • haram_masala 6y ago
      No, the profiles have other information too, like what geographical regions you want to work in, what kind of job you’re looking for, etc. This could give away information to one’s employer that they might have preferred to keep quiet. I predict that a nonzero number of people will be harmed, embarrassed or at least inconvenienced by this.
      • pmiller2 6y ago
        Counterpoint: they may not display everything you see when you log in to TripleByte. You're complaining about something that hasn't happened to anyone and may not happen at all. This time next week, you may have a valid argument, but not yet.
        • wolfgang42 6y ago
          I’d much rather know that now, rather than waiting until after it’s already happened to find out whether or not it’s a privacy violation.
          • pmiller2 6y ago
            Have you tried asking?
            • wolfgang42 6y ago
              I don’t think I should need to. If a company is going to unexpectedly publish information about me on short notice, the onus is on them to consider the implications and explain what they’re doing.
              • pmiller2 6y ago
                Okay, so, you're concerned about a potential privacy violation, but won't take steps to find out if there is one to begin with? I don't have a lot of sympathy for that position. Go and fill your TripleByte profile with misinformation if it suits you, I suppose. Edit: I missed that there's a privacy setting to make the profiles non-searchable. So, I guess you care enough to complain on the internet, but not enough to even ask if there's a privacy violation? Seems like there's a name for that.
                • wolfgang42 6y ago
                  Just saw your edit. My emphasis continues to be on unexpected and short notice, with an added obscure (notice that you missed it too) and opt-out. I should not need to be prepared to jump at a moment’s notice any time someone decides they want to “accelerate [their] mission.” (And I am going to opt out—or, more likely, delete my account altogether—but that doesn’t mean I can’t also complain on the Internet.)
• andr 6y ago
  If this inspires you to delete your profile, according to the help section, the only way to do it is by emailing candidate.support@triplebyte.com.
  • kashishhora 6y ago
    You can delete your account via https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center.
    • throwbacktictac 6y ago
      This doesn't seem to work. I requested to delete my profile but I didn't get a confirmation email. However, when I requested to make my profile invisible I immediately received an email confirmation.
      • kxr 6y ago
        Clicked on the delete confirmation link, yet I can still login just fine?
        • dredds 6y ago
          There was another site that had 30 day deletion policy, but if you logged in during the 30 days then deletion was automatically cancelled. Squirrelly behavior obviously.
          • kxr 6y ago
            I think that's what's going on here. Got another email today letting me know that my request to delete my account is complete, yet I could reset my password just fine.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• haram_masala 6y ago
  This is awful. And announcing this late on a Friday is what news organizations call “taking out the trash,” publicizing something when people aren’t paying attention.
  • ammon 6y ago
    Really sorry that you think this is awful. Certainly do opt-out. I think that taking on LinkedIn and creating a better engineering resume is a good thing to do. I can assure you that the Friday announcement is a result of our team grinding to hit a planned release week, not anything other than that (I would have loved to get this out earlier in the week)
    • wolfgang42 6y ago
      Maybe you should have considered the timing more carefully rather than rushing to keep it in the sprint? Pushing it out last minute just makes you sound desperate rather than shady, which isn’t much of an improvement.
      • ganstyles 6y ago
        And this should have been opt in, not "opt out within a week or else we'll dump your info and association with us onto the internet."
    • austhrow743 6y ago
      >I think that taking on LinkedIn and creating a better engineering resume is a good thing to do. Clearly and obviously not the part people are upset about. Cmon mate.
    • new_guy 6y ago
      Isn't this breaching GDPR regulations along with a host of others?
      • deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
• kylebarron 6y ago
  Hard to find the opt-out button. You have to sign in, go to your "profile builder" [0], and then click the very low contrast "Visibility settings" button just below the top of your profile. [0]: https://triplebyte.com/candidates/profile_builder https://triplebyte.com/candidates/profile_builder
  • bgorman 6y ago
    Thanks for this, there is no way I would have ever found this without your post. It definitely seems like this link is intentionally hidden.
  • kemonocode 6y ago
    Wow, it's like it's following every dark pattern in the book. Wouldn't have found it out myself.
    • freyr 6y ago
      It's a master class in dark patterns. I guess they figure this will be good in the long run, but I'll never trust anything from Triplebyte or Ammon Bartram after this.
  • Dolores12 6y ago
    And to delete account you have to email them.
  • ALittleLight 6y ago
    Easier to find the "delete account" link... https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center
    • u08ywo 6y ago
      It takes 30 days for any of these, actions to take place, but the window in which it was announced is a week. Something seems off.
      • 6y ago
• ammon 6y ago
  Hey everyone. Happy to answer any questions about this. Basically, we think that LinkedIn profiles don't do a good job of showing engineering skill (especially for self-taught people or people from non-traditional backgrounds). I'm excited to just build better support for showing side projects and GitHub contributions. LinkedIn profiles have become the default engineering resume (despite the fact that most engineers are not particularly happy with their LinkedIn profile). But there's lock-in. I hope that we have enough scale to be able to chip away at this.
  • 9wzYQbTYsAIc 6y ago
    Please do not turn it into another Rolodex and competition for connections. It’s bad enough to know that connections could be mined through inference, but I’ll be leaving the second I find out you are turning into a social network. A nicely styled resume and showcase should do the trick nicely.
  • dorkinspace 6y ago
    This should absolutely be opt-in, not opt-out. Were people that originally interviewed aware before their interview that their profile would become public at a later date?
    • wolfgang42 6y ago
      I interviewed with them last year, and just got this email. There may have been some of the usual boilerplate about “publish, disseminate, or publicly perform your content in order to provide our services” somewhere (actually, I recall a surprising lack of legalese) but there was absolutely not any attention drawn to the possibility that my profile would be shown to anyone other than the companies looking at the round of candidates I was included in.
      • Exolon 6y ago
        I didn't even "interview", just took one of their tests out of curiosity to see how I did. The announcement was especially unwelcome news given that I'm not even looking for another job.
• throwbacktictac 6y ago
  I'm curious about why this post appears to be on it way to being flagged off of the home page. It's valuable information and is likely very relevant to the HN community. Thanks for the heads up @winston_smith.
  • gherig4 6y ago
    It is off the homepage again.
  • PudgePacket 6y ago
    Since I can't delete a post I've removed the original content after seeing dang's message. Appreciate your reply dang :)
    • dang 6y ago
      We don't moderate HN that way. It's just the opposite when a YC company is involved: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20moderate%20less%20not%20more%20yc&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
  • dang 6y ago
    It set off the flamewar detector. We review submissions that are affected by that software, and turn it off for threads that aren't flamewars. I've done so for this one. Other than that, moderators didn't touch this post or (as far as I know) even see it.
    • zkim 6y ago
      Hey that's neat, I didn't know HN had a flamewar detector. How does it work? Content matching and post frequency?
      • prawn 6y ago
        Might be depth of comment branches and ratio of upvoting and downvoting to comments?
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• ganstyles 6y ago
  This is horrible, what a breach of trust. I used TB to stealthily interview for jobs, had a good experience. Recommended them to others. Now I see that if I hadn't seen this post, I wouldn't have known about this and those details would have been public, which had the potential to seriously undermine me at my current position. I'll opt out tomorrow, but according to others it sounds like the visibility link was somewhat hidden. At least with this they're well on the way to becoming the next LinkedIn, at least by their practices. What a dark pattern.
  • judge2020 6y ago
    > if I hadn't seen this post, I wouldn't have known about this To be fair they sent an email to everyone who had signed up; I received the same email.
    • ganstyles 6y ago
      My problem with this is the automatic opt in, using my profile and details for more than I intended for them to use it for (regardless of whether I technically signed something staying they _could_ do this, it is borderline unethical to use my information for this purpose), only having a week to "opt out", and not knowing what opt out even does. Sending an email to everyone doesn't cure any of these points.
      • wolfgang42 6y ago
        Not to mention that the only reference to needing to opt-out is a veiled mention buried in the second paragraph. I skimmed the email briefly, said “oh that’s neat, what a great idea” and filed it under “things for the next job hunt” thinking I’d turn on my profile then.
        • mhdhn 6y ago
          The link in the email did not work for me: it sent me to my profile, where I was presumably to be able to opt out of sharing my info publicly. But I could not see any way from there. Maybe I'm blind. As usual, googling worked better to find something on the site than using the site itself. Googled: triplebyte opt out -- that linked me to the right place. https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center
• csdreamer7 6y ago
  So I wasn't sure where to opt-out at first. I clicked privacy center, ( https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center ), couldn't find the option, but chose 'Opt out of Personal Information Sharing' because why not? After clicking the button I had to click a confirmation email to get this approved. Then it said it would happen within 30 days and I may be required to show govt ID. Why? I am already verified with my login account. It is not like I am doing something sensitive like changing a password or email. And what is this about needing to show govt id? They have zero reason to need govt ID to opt out of 'Personal Information Sharing' of all things. Honestly tempted to just delete my profile. (That may also require govt ID.)
  • throwbacktictac 6y ago
    Indeed, it does require a gov't ID to delete you profile. Triplebyte is starting to look like Keyser Soze here :)
    • wolfgang42 6y ago
      That’s particularly strange given that they didn’t even need me to show ID for them to get me a job. The first time during the entire process that anyone had any proof of my legal existence was when I filled out my I-9 so I could get a paycheck. They flew me across the country for interviews and invited me to the Triplebyte office for dinner on nothing more solid than my email address and a friendly face.
      • remote_phone 6y ago
        It’s not strange. It’s artificial friction to make it harder to opt out. It’s obvious they don’t want people to opt out so they make it very difficult to do so. What a shady company.
        • wolfgang42 6y ago
          Yeah, I was using “strange” in a pointedly ironic sense. There’s no good way to spin the juxtaposition between the two standards.
• wolfgang42 6y ago
  I interviewed via Triplebyte last year, and thoroughly enjoyed the service. Before this I would have (and did) wholeheartedly recommended them to anyone; the process was great from the candidate’s perspective and I also have confidence in their ability to accurately evaluate candidates’ skills. After this announcement, though, I’m afraid that faith has completely crumbled. Even if Ammon had showed up in this thread and immediately announced that this was a terrible idea and they were rolling it back immediately, the mere fact that they were considering doing this is a huge blow. It doesn’t help that I skimmed the email when I got it this afternoon and didn’t even realize it was an opt-out; it was only when I saw this thread that I took a closer look and realized that the email was lacking a CTA button at the bottom for a reason. That seems incredibly shady to me and instantly changed my impression of the company. Take heed, other companies: it only takes an instant to destroy your company’s reputation, and it’s incredibly difficult to win back that confidence.
  • ganstyles 6y ago
    For what it's worth, this was what happened to me. They regularly send marketing emails and updates, which I skim from time to time. It wasn't until I saw this thread that I realized that one particular email out of the (actually checks notes) 62 (!!!) unsolicited emails they've sent me in the last 12 months was this important.
    • imafish 6y ago
      Me three.
    • bootlooped 6y ago
      For me, it seems like the emails picked up a lot in the last 2 months. I attributed this to covid aka a lot of people instantly out of work. The most cynical take is that they increased email frequency so this would be more likely to fly under the radar. I am not even sure I believe that though.
  • steveoc64 6y ago
    "it only takes an instant to destroy your company’s reputation, and it’s incredibly difficult to win back that confidence." Not really. Given that nobody on here has identified the underlying problem, and are happy to blame everything on Triplebyte ... it just goes to show how nothing is going to change anytime soon. Confidence in using this, and other services, will only grow.
• cubicPangolin 6y ago
  Registered on hacker news JUST to post this. I saw this email earlier today, skimmed it and thought "hmm cool they're competing with Linkedin or something" and then immediately forgot. I had absolutely no idea they were going to exploit my data and breach my expectations of privacy to drive traffic to their website (an issue in and of itself). And the part where they tell you to go ahead and opt out is hidden in there! Really not good
  • steveoc64 6y ago
    "breach my expectations of privacy" Q: where did these expectations of privacy come from ?
    • cubicPangolin 6y ago
      Naive optimism. There was never any indication our involvement with the company was going to be made completely public.
    • domador 6y ago
      Others would have similar expectations, from other online services. We expect them to use our data in very limited ways that they've specified, and not suddenly start disseminating it in unexpected ways (if that is indeed what's happening with Triplebyte.)
    • iovrthoughtthis 6y ago
      You’re right. Supposedly the hints have been in the privacy policy since December 2019. Identifiers, third parties. “ Companies that use our services to be matched with job candidates. Candidate profiles created by our users are accessible to the public. “ https://triplebyte.com/privacy https://triplebyte.com/privacy
    • localcrisis 6y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23280811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23280811
    • ashtonkem 6y ago
• steveoc64 6y ago
  A lot of complaints below, and not much sympathy from the likes of me on this one. An entire generation (across all age ranges) has willingly thrown out personal liberty in favour of convenience ... and now the surprise when that turns around to bite. Honestly, what did you expect ?
  • wolfgang42 6y ago
    I expected Triplebyte to help me find a job. This is what they said they would do—the only thing they said they would do—and they did so admirably. Then some eight months later they dropped a bombshell. I’m not even sure what your argument is here; are you saying that because “an entire generation across age ranges” (whatever that means) collectively did... something... now companies can indiscriminately trample on everyone’s privacy forevermore, and nobody’s allowed to try to reverse the situation?
    • steveoc64 6y ago
      I get what you are saying, and yes, those are totally reasonable expectations in any community. Im just saying - I think its amazing that _anybody_ trusts any of these Silicon Valley organisations to do anything reasonable. They are convenient to use, sure ... but ever trusting them to put your interests above their own. I dont understand how people can believe that. If you hand over info and put in on their servers .. you dont own that info at all. They can, and will, do whatever they want with it to make another $
      • wolfgang42 6y ago
        The problem is that non-SV companies aren’t generally any better, and frequently worse (cf all the security leaks where they release info that they didn’t mean to publish). The best we can do as individuals is push back against it when we see it happening, and advocate for legislation like GDPR to enforce it legally. Your original post is poorly worded at best to get your point across; it comes off as a victim-blaming status-quo-advocating cheap quip, which doesn’t add anything to the conversation, either about this particular instance or the general problem.
• rajacombinator 6y ago
  Way to kill off all the goodwill your company had built in the community. Another money printing company killed by VC funding.
• egberts1 6y ago
  Thank God, I used a fake profile. I sailed the interview to 2nd stage but they couldn’t figure out how to interview a deaf SW engineer.
  • scandox 6y ago
    Is that a difficult problem? I'd be interested to hear what they got stuck on. I guess I naively imagine that in a world of text chat and voice to text it would be pretty doable.
    • egberts1 6y ago
      They only initiate that phone call. I’ve explained that I can arrange for an interpreter by my side if they would give me a phone number in which I could initiate the call. But ... nope.
      • scandox 6y ago
        So pure can't-be-arsed by the sounds of it
• d23 6y ago
  I was also recently spammed by an ex employee that appears to have ex-filtrated my personal data. I notified Triplebyte and received no response.
  • jacquesm 6y ago
    If you are in the EU notify your local data privacy watchdog.
• jwilber 6y ago
  Email released the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. What are the odds!
• rs23296008n1 6y ago
  Wow. Plenty of angry people in my circles. Apparently deletion requires ID or something. Um... thats less good. I vaguely understand why if it was needed to sign up. [addendum: nope!] Suggest you think carefully about your next step if you have an account. Maybe gibberish your account to whatever extent you see fit, update the email address somewhere less identifying (perhaps sneakemail) and go on with your life. Assume all details will be sold (you mean you didn't already?!) I think they are out of touch with their userbase. Or they have even more plans their userbase won't like. Addendum: There's an option to control public visibility. Opt-out but this is only partial details. I would not rely on that "partial" aspect. Worse still: if you want to "not be contactable for new opportunities" that only lasts for 24 months at max. You can't select a "not wanting offers at all". Minimum is 1 month. This means you could be inadvertantly outed as "looking for opportinities" without even knowing it.
  • wolfgang42 6y ago
    > I vaguely understand why if it was needed to sign up. Nope! Triplebyte flew me across the country, put me up in a hotel, and otherwise arranged a job for me with nothing more than my email address and a phone number. The first time I had to provide ID in the entire process was when I filled out the I-9 form on my first day at the company that had hired me.
    • rs23296008n1 6y ago
      Sounds like a good experience. I don't have anything to do with them so color me surprised. I've got around 150 messages and more within last few hours of our little group - all very unhappy. The irc server #rant channel is getting loud. Edit: 150 and growing (growling?).
      • wolfgang42 6y ago
        Yeah, up until a couple hours ago I had nothing but praise for them. They made the whole process go extremely smoothly, answered all the questions I had and gave me a ton of advice on the whole process, and their screening process was not only great from the my perspective but also gave me confidence in the quality of all their candidates. Then this happened.
• zackshcrodinger 6y ago
  Registered an account just to post this. I used to like this company but it is now dead to me, I will never have anything to do with it ever again and I will urge people I know to stay away from it. This is abusive and evil.
• alextheparrot 6y ago
  I did a couple interviews through Triplebyte in 2017 (Purge emails every few years), but can’t remember which email/single sign-on provider I registered with... Anyone have ideas on how to figure that out without accidentally registering and exacerbating the problem?
  • Zekio 6y ago
    don't most SSO providers keep track of that to some degree? which means you might be able to find it there, other than that maybe try 'forgot password' usually my go to solution.
• Raed667 6y ago
  I tried deleting my account and apparently it takes 30 days for some reason! That looks so shady! We're processing your request and should be done within 30 days. We will verify your request using the information associated with your account. Government identification may be required and we may ask you for more information in order to verify your identify. Any questions? Email us at privacy@triplebyte.com
  • odensc 6y ago
    > Government identification may be required Ah yes, the classic "send us more of your PII to delete your information." I've ran into that too many times.
    • m11a 6y ago
      It's a horrible way companies try to discourage data subjects from exercising their rights. This is not lawful under both the GDPR and the CCPA. If Triplebyte follow through with their request against an EU or California resident, they'd be breaking data protection laws. If comments here are any indication, too many people, being unaware of their rights, may fall for it though.
      • Raed667 6y ago
        Well I live in France and will certainly not send them my ID. Lets see how they respond.
      • danieldk 6y ago
        This is not lawful under both the GDPR and the CCPA. If Triplebyte follow through with their request against an EU or California resident, they'd be breaking data protection laws. IANAL, but they may already be in violation of the GDPR with the 30 days processing time. While the GDPR states 30 days as the upper bound, the article about erasure also states: The data subject shall have the right to obtain from the controller the erasure of personal data concerning him or her without undue delay and the controller shall have the obligation to erase personal data without undue delay where one of the following grounds applies [...] Notice the phrase undue delay. It seems that the legal interpretation of undue delay is as soon as possible [2]. Since the sign-up for Triplebyte seems to be immediate (you just create an account), they could also remove an account with a simple delete account button (remove some rows from a SQL database). So in the case of most web services as soon as possible seems to be with the click of a button to delete an account itself. Allowing a few more days for changes to propagate through storage systems and backups. For anything longer, they should probably come up with damn good reasons when this is brought to court. At any rate, they will have more serious problems if they make citizens public for people in the EU. They'll open up themselves to a huge liability. You are simply not allowed to use data for other purposes than what the data subject gave explicit well-informed consent for. And no, burying somethings in the terms and conditions is not explicit consent. [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32016R0679&from=EN#d1e2606-1-1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL... [2] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/term-without-undue-delay-context-gdpr-1-day-week-month-piltz https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/term-without-undue-delay-cont...
• Nezteb 6y ago
  I have a few guesses about this: 1. Triplebyte knew this would cause some outrage, especially on HN and Reddit. 2. Triplebyte did some calculations and predicted that doing this on a Friday and only giving people a week to opt-out would result in the fewest number of opt-outs. 3. Triplebyte assumed that many of those outraged online would delete their accounts. 4. Despite all of the above, Triplebyte calculated that this move would make them more money in the long run. I’m also guessing that these profiles will serve ads. I bet Triplebyte will offer “premium” plans for both job seekers and employers so that they can directly contact you more easily. I hope this change incorporates necessary privacy measures for job seekers. I hope that this doesn’t become a 1-to-1 LinkedIn competitor that only seeks to get clicks and ad revenue. Only time will tell. I’m very skeptical but I won’t rage yet. I’ll opt out for now and see how it goes...
  • neilv 6y ago
    > doing this on a Friday Was it Friday of a three-day weekend? That's one of the best news dump days of the year.
    • xnyan 6y ago
      Yep, Monday is a holiday (if you happen to have a job, and have a job that gives paid holidays)
• Operyl 6y ago
  Jesus, what a horrific way to opt out. "Visibility" as the same contrast as text? Great way to kill _all_ motivation to use this company going forward. Weren't they in one of the YC groups?
• f2000 6y ago
  Was in job search late last year so not much to worry about. But abuse me and you lose me, goodbye triplebyte, we hardly knew each other and never will.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• odensc 6y ago
  Funny how this[1] is their modal when you log in. [1]: https://i.imgur.com/0J4sVlX.png https://i.imgur.com/0J4sVlX.png
  • wolfgang42 6y ago
    Transcription: > Welcome to Triplebyte > As part of this exclusive network of engineers: > - Companies reach out to you > - You control what companies see > - Your profile is private > Now, let’s take a look at your new dashboard. > [Next]
• redis_mlc 6y ago
  > Your profile is about to become public That's pretty horrible. But I have to ask ... since my understanding is that hiring companies make you redo the technical interviews again, what is the point of doing the Triplebyte interview process at all? Also related, there was a startup that was scraping your Linkedin status and sending that to employers who subscribed, effectively doing the same thing Triplebyte is planning to do. There was quite an uproar over that, too. Speaking of Linkedin, your employer can view your profile if it's public, so again, similar problem to what Triplebyte is doing.
  • wolfgang42 6y ago
    The hiring company has to follow a standardized flow for any candidates they get through Triplebyte. Triplebyte does their own evaluation and reports the results, and then each hiring company is only allowed to do a short non-technical[1] phone screen plus a single day of onsite interviews before either rejecting the candidate or extending an offer. [1] and they enforce this—they specifically ask the candidate to report any technical questions asked during the phone call.
    • MarkSweep 6y ago
      I don’t think this is true anymore. I reported extra interviews to my talent manager and they said nothing. Then I got an email that they fired all talent managers.
    • SilasX 6y ago
      "Only" a single day of onsite (presumably technical) interviews? Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of Triplebyte, which is to "O(1)" your job search, i.e. avoid a long interview process with each company?
      • ganstyles 6y ago
        Maybe. I did TripleByte, the usual process everyone is talking about. That led to 30 minute calls with a bunch of potential employers, then I selected 2-3 of them to do on-sites. The on-sites were single day technical whiteboarding sessions + lunch (taking 6-8 hours total, exhausting), then I got offers from those companies. When I've gone to FAANG companies, I've gone through a lot more per company to receive an offer. Multiple visits to each campus, lunches, technical sessions, spanning potentially weeks or months. Overall I think TB saved a lot of time and I really enjoyed the process. Of course, now they've really shot themselves in the foot.
• pleasecalllater 6y ago
  I don't know the US law. I'm just wondering... if US companies have to ensure their software is fine according to GDPR for Europe clients, I'm wondering how it is with other law. The other law I'm thinking about is the general rule that for every change in a contract all parties must agree. It is normal that I get a letter from my bank "We are changing the rules, here you have 30 days to say you don't agree. If you won't, we'll assume you agreed. If you won't agree, your account will be closed.". So, I can say I don't agree. Here, they just assumed I agree. Any change, like the one Triplebyte made, is not legal here without my consent. Yet, they made it. I'm wondering what else they would change. I don't want to wake one Sunday morning to notice that they I'm charged a couple of millions because they changed the rules during the previous night. I'm not going to show then any of my IDs. Just no. Knowing all information from my ID here has a similar power to knowing SSN in US. Instead, I just devastated my profile. There is no real information anymore. I'm wondering about adding some longer description that I'm protesting against their change of rules. I'm wondering how they would react to this. Maybe it is the way to delete my account, who knows.
• kerpele 6y ago
  Wow, looks like triplebyte profile settings page is full of dark patterns. Like, setting yourself as not interested in offers will forcefully revert back after a time period, and that even though there’s a checkbox for opting in to being shown to companies you can’t save the profile without giving consent. :(
• askar_yu 6y ago
  When big companies do, it's understandable - they know they can get away with it and they often do. But what makes these beloved and trusted folks commit such actions? (I've never used TB, but had heard so many good stories about them and had put them in my mind into that category of companies that almost send a handwritten note to their first 100 users, etc.) Are we (users) perhaps partly to blame? Maybe we do let them get away and they know that? How many people are really going to delete their profile now? (instead of just opting out) Perhaps we should be more principled in our response to such things? Imagine they lose 90% of their user base because of this idiocy. May be that'd serve as a broader lesson of real ethics? I remember well when Quora forced me to install their app on mobile (not just a reminder pop-up, they blocked the page fully) - I sweared to never use them ever again. I kept my promise for a year or so, and then somehow went back to reading it later; so I am guilty myself of not being principled. But these sort of decisions really really puzzle me.
  • DangitBobby 6y ago
    The Quora thing was baffling to me. There fortunately is a querystring parameter, something like `block_mobile=1` that you can remove from the URL and keep using without the app.
• mping 6y ago
  Kinda reminds me when LinkedIn invited your Gmail contacts without your consent. I think fb did something similar in the beginning. So the lesson is that if you want to grow quickly you do a land grab, just stomping on your user's rights.
• Larrikin 6y ago
  What a shame. I hadn't used this site and it seemed like it may have been a good resource, but the backlash in this thread combined with the official response to the backlash and the dark patterns implemented in all parts of the process guarantees I'll never make an account.
• sohamsankaran 6y ago
  If I understand this correctly, if you 1) did a Triplebyte assessment, and 2) didn't do especially well, it would be possible to figure this out from your profile from the lack of badges. This seems like the sort of information that people would want to keep private.
  • dsincl12 6y ago
    That's one version. Another one could be, you're having a great career at a company, suddenly your profile goes public and shows that you are looking for a job outside the company. Someone in your current company notices and now your career will screech to a halt even though you where never really that serious about it. There are so many bad versions on of how this could unfold...
  • itronitron 6y ago
    Also, your location determines (or used to determine) what assessments are available to you, which would impact badges as well.
• lienne 6y ago
  God I hate Triplebyte for this sneaky move. I will never sign up
  • quickthrower2 6y ago
    I hate them for destroying a great idea. I was keeping an occasional eye on when they’d go international.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• pot8n 6y ago
  Usually job listing, SEO, web crawling, VPN and many other very low-barrier-to-entry companies are founded and run by the worst and most contemptible of all people. Dude, it's like a pattern!
• gitgud 6y ago
  I remember doing the Triplebyte quiz a few years ago and getting the response: > "We really appreciate you taking the time to complete our quiz and coding problems. Unfortunately we couldn't accept your application this time." It didn't show a score or anything, so I had no idea what I should improve on or what I was good at. Pretty sure they hide the results so people can't cheat, but the whole experience left me feeling pretty inadequate and stupid for even trying... After reading the comments from one of the founders in these threads, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
  • danjac 6y ago
    They're just capitalizing on the leetcode interview fetish among certain cargo-culting startups.
    • Infinitesimus 6y ago
      > ... among certain cargo-culting startups. ... all of the biggest, highest paying tech companies
  • joelhaasnoot 6y ago
    They also don't serve a lot of regions and still bait you into creating a profile...
    • flareback 6y ago
      Yep, they didn't have any positions in the area I live in.
• arcturus17 6y ago
  Wow, what a dumpster fire. The CEO coming in here and trying to defend that this is actually a great idea is only making things worse. I'm guessing they don't operate in Europe, because this would be a massive violation of many European and national privacy regulations. Maybe they should take a hint from this - the fact that they can pull it off in the US doesn't mean it's morally acceptable.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • Moru 6y ago
    As owner I would not plan any European trips anytime soon.
  • DethNinja 6y ago
    If they ever interviewed an engineer from EU then what they are doing is very much illegal, it doesn’t matter even if company is based on USA.
    • MandieD 6y ago
      Engineer in the EU, even if they are US citizens - there are over 100,000 US citizens in Germany, not counting current military or their dependents.
  • MandieD 6y ago
    I have the beginnings of a profile there, despite being conspicuously in Germany, because I took the test and applied to be an interviewer. Too many people think US citizen != EU resident (and therefore not a data subject covered by GDPR)
  • dmak 6y ago
    I can't find even the place to delete my account. It seems like it's not even GDPR compliant which is the standard these days for data compliance.
• blickentwapft 6y ago
  No wonder people don’t trust tech companies.
• pier25 6y ago
  I also received this email but I'm pretty sure I never signed up to TripleByte or used its service.
• sdan 6y ago
  Thought this was a criticism post... until I realized it was CEO himself talking about why this is good
• blunte 6y ago
  I interviewed for their generalist interviewer offer that they were advertising heavily a couple of years ago. I aced the lengthy and nontrivial generalist quiz, and then waited for a callback. Two weeks later I sent a polite email to check in. No reply. Repeat two weeks later. About two months later I received a reply that said the positions were filled, but that they would love to offer me as a candidate to US companies. This was useless to me as I live in Europe. I believe the interviewer position was a sham, and they were just eating people's time in order to get detailed developer data.
  • NightlyDev 6y ago
    "I aced the lengthy and nontrivial generalist quiz" I actually think everyone aced it and ends up in the 80-100 percentile group. "This site says I know more than 80-100% of users" is good for word of mouth marketing.
    • blunte 6y ago
      As I recall, the test had some medium depth questions on SQL, unix shell commands, programming, architecture, and more, and the entire test was timed at 20 minutes iirc. In hindsight, it was actually a pretty good quiz for judging if a candidate knew a good bit about many different areas of development, architecture, and sysadmin. I know I aced the test not because they told me I did, but because I knew the answers to the questions. Perhaps my enjoyment of the quiz and the possibility of having an interviewer role set me up for greater disappointment that the whole thing turned out to be (or seem to be) a sham.
    • erikpukinskis 6y ago
      Just have 2 TaskRabbits take the test for every coder, and suddenly the 50th percentile becomes the 80th.
• aidos 6y ago
  Wow. Thanks for this. I ignored the email because Triplebyte just feels a bit spammy to me now so I mentally block it out. Have logged in to stop this from happening and currently apparently I'm "Open to discussing new opportunities", which is news to me. On trying to change it to "Not interested in any new opportunities" there's a dropdown that says "I’d be open to new opportunities in:" and most you can set it to is 2 years. These are whole new dark patterns. UPDATE You can turn off the setting they're talking about by going to [0] and then clicking the little grey "Visibility settings" under the Profile URL section. UPDATE There's a delete your account option on this page [1], though YMMV: >> Government identification may be required and we may ask you for more information in order to verify your identify [0] https://triplebyte.com/candidates/profile_builder https://triplebyte.com/candidates/profile_builder [1] https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center
  • jacquesm 6y ago
    The whole government ID thingy is really beyond the pale. Just imagine: you never needed it to sign up in the first place. So now after proving to be not worthy of your trust, tone deaf and ethically deficient, to delete your account you need to give them even more information. This company deserves to die.
    • mchan889 6y ago
      Give it time, an EU citizen who applied will eventually make GDPR complaint. At which point, it's game over.
      • anewdirection 6y ago
        In theory. Has any company seen the pointy end of GDPR yet?
        • brabel 6y ago
          Yes, several every day: https://www.enforcementtracker.com/ https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
• sp527 6y ago
  This is utterly amazing. He just blew up his company with one horrible decision. It’s over. The people they rely on (talented software engineers) are almost all one or two degrees away from HN. They’ll never trust TripleByte again. I expect you’ll see TripleBytes partner companies start to distance themselves next week as well.
• blunte 6y ago
  If the anecdotes in Glassdoor about triplebyte are true, this behavior and its CEO response are no surprise.
• ratherbefuddled 6y ago
  I've always found TripleByte's marketing-disguised-as-help left some vague sense of distrust with me. I think it was pretending to have some deep insight about recruitment that never felt in the least bit believable. I guess the instinct was trustworthy, unlike them.
• weeksie 6y ago
  I took one of their dev quizzes when they launched just for the hell of it and entered my name as "Die in a Fire" which gives me a giggle every time I get an update from them. This time around, it was even funnier. I have such a dislike for middleman industries like recruiting. I know they provide real value but once one of them gets hold, it's almost inevitable they'll use their market position to squeeze everybody involved.
• bagels 6y ago
  Thank you for posting this. I read the first sentence, and falsely concluded that they were just pointlessly offering some oauth service. There's too much email that it's easy to get away with something like this without users realizing it.
• peteretep 6y ago
  The fundamental disconnect here is that Ammon seems to think this data belongs to him, for uses he deems appropriate, rather than belonging to his users. This works for Facebook and LinkedIn because of network effects, but not for some random staffing agency with a tech gimmick. If Adecco or MichaelPage did this it’d attract the attention of ambitious public prosecutors worldwide. It’s almost a shame, as the idea itself doesn’t seem terrible, but the auto-enrolment and dark patterns for removal makes this whole thing feel like a New Digg moment.
  • Hamuko 6y ago
    >The fundamental disconnect here is that Ammon seems to think this data belongs to him, for uses he deems appropriate, rather than belonging to his users. This is the reason why I ultimately like GDPR: the foundation is that the user owns their data and not the company that has it on a database server.
  • derivagral 6y ago
    Isn't this legally the case? There's a random place on the internet and people upload details. Not payment info, and I honestly am not clear on how much the rest is protected (USA). This is exactly what Zuckerberg called people "dumb fucks" for, and I don't think anything (legally) has changed. I'm on your side as far as the "why the hell is this the case", but I think this is the world that (USA and others) live in.
    • jdxcode 6y ago
      Legal or not it's clearly the wrong thing to do and not at all what users would expect.
    • wilde 6y ago
      I filed an FTC complaint. I'd encourage other concerned folks do the same, since out of court settlements with the FTC are how this is currently adjudicated in the US.
      • heavyset_go 6y ago
• neilv 6y ago
  Considering this apparent questionable behavior, and the dark patterns people are mentioning on HN... was the original business entirely legitimate? I've found the currently en vogue leetcode grinding and whiteboard hazings to be questionable, and I'm wondering this scandal will prompt anyone to reconsider the whole sketchy institution of software developer "tech tests".
• johnmarcus 6y ago
  Ooohh, I got lucky. After I evaluated the platform a few months ago I asked for my account to be deleted, something about the whole platform felt off. They don't measure so many of the most important success factors for good engineers.
• barbarbar 6y ago
  I would assume this would illegal in EU due to GDPR. The idea that one should perform an action in order to avoid it appears insane.
• PaulHoule 6y ago
  "Hiring is broken", right up there with "Does your content marketing strategy need an API?", "Seniors in Norwich can..." , and "Throw out this one vegetable now!"
  • juped 6y ago
    Everyone who says hiring is broken has a brilliant idea to break it even further.
    • quickthrower2 6y ago
      And they’ll create a company with the name coming from a common English word. I guess triplebyte is an old school 2 word combo.
• Etheryte 6y ago
  For anyone from Europe, in addition to deleting your account [1], I strongly urge you to write privacy@triplebyte.com with a GDPR request. Given Regulation 2016/679 [2], you have the right to: - request a full copy of any information held about you (article 15) - withdraw consent and request deletion of any information about you (article 17) - object any further processing of your data, including making it public (article 21) Playing with people's data like this is not okay and personally I plan to take them to court if they don't comply. [1] https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center [2] https://gdpr-info.eu/ https://gdpr-info.eu/
• thrower123 6y ago
  They are really putting the smtp servers to work this week, I've been getting two or three emails a day from Triplebyte, spamming about these changes. If they are really doing remote jobs, maybe I'll have to look again, but when I aced their silly test and got interviewed originally, they only worked in the Bay Area, Seattle, and NYC, and I'd rather pull out my toenails with hot pincers than relocate to any of those places.
• marcinzm 6y ago
  TripleByte has taken on $50 million in funding and covid is deeply slowing down hiring. I'm guessing this is the desperate phase of company growth as they try to pivot to increase growth metrics. I'm curious if they would have done it had covid not happened.
  • prepend 6y ago
    I was surprised by the level of funding for a recruiting company. Their model is really costly too because they have at least one two-hour Skype screening interview for potential candidates and I imagine they need lots of those to present a few candidates for interview. Even though headhunter fees can be high (10-30% back when I used to use them), this seems tough to scale unless their thought was they would capture all the headhunters in the world (eg, google eating classifieds). I don’t think that’s possible with a process that requires so much manual effort. I read about their aim for using AI, but just the cost of developing a usable training model to reduce the need for in person screens requires, what, hundreds of thousands of successful placements. I remember needing 100 phone screens for 20 phone interviews for 5 in person interviews for 2 offers. Assuming anyone I trust to do Skype phone screens is at least $100/hour, that’s $200 x 2 hours x 20 just = $40k for screening. Even if they break even with placement fees, that’s not an amazing margin to warrant such investment. Seemed like AI buzz overfunding.
• sub7 6y ago
  Hey dumbass, your Triplebyte profile doesn't need to contain data about your job search. It's a profile on a job search site. You can't really be this big a baboon. Just say sorry, make it opt in, and carry the fuck on.
• rebase-vc 6y ago
  just came here to add that the problem is that the default is to make the profile URL publicly visible. the default should be that it is INVISIBLE and then the user opts into visibility
• asidiali 6y ago
  Triplebyte was already a joke, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Their whole “Fast Track” program claiming to allow you to skip technical interviews is a total fraud of a marketing ploy. They make you take a 2 hour live coding interview with a Triplebyte engineer, with the promise that if you pass, you won’t need to do any more technical interviews with companies through Triplebyte, only “final-round personality-style on-sites”. The reality is that any company who contacts you is STILL going to run you thru their entire interviewing process. The extra 2 hour interview with Triplebyte is literally pointless - and any company you try to discuss this “policy” with will be caught confused and off guard. It’s no surprise to me that a company that blatantly lies about their offering would do some crap like this. Shame on Triplebyte for their fraudulent and dishonest nature.
  • bootlooped 6y ago
    "They make you take a 2 hour live coding interview with a Triplebyte engineer, with the promise that if you pass, you won’t need to do any more technical interviews with companies through Triplebyte, only “final-round personality-style on-sites”." I was never given the impression that there would be no more technical interviews after the Triplebyte one. They were always crystal clear with me that there would be 2 steps for each company: a 30 minute non-technical "pitch call", and a final all-day onsite. They never implied the onsite was non-technical, and I never took it to be. I think the value proposition is that you skip almost all of the back and forth footsie before the onsite. In my experience it was worth it. There were some companies I interviewed with, not through Triplebyte, where I had 7 or 8 calls before they would bring me onsite. I get it, they want to make sure they're sure before they pay for a hotel and a flight, but it is a big hassle.
    • asidiali 6y ago
      Thanks for sharing! They told me there would be a 30m pitch call followed by an all day of on-sites that were explicitly not whiteboarding sessions or technical assessments. Also, I still did have several back and forth calls with companies I was connected with - it wasn’t just the one half-hour call and then on-sites. Here’s the exact email from TripleByte upon passing the quiz: “ Here's how it works: 1. We'll show your profile to companies that are likely a good fit. 2. The companies will request interviews with you. 3. You'll be able to review the requests, and accept the ones you're interested in. After you accept an interview request, the next step is an introductory phone call where you and the company get to know one another. The companies that work with us all agree to skip technical screening, and take you right to the final interview (saving you time). To get started, complete your profile so that we can find the right companies and roles for you. After you complete your profile, you'll also gain access to our exclusive Triplebyte Alum Slack community, which can help support you throughout your career.” > The companies that work with us all agree to skip technical screening, and take you right to the final interview (saving you time). Define technical screening? To me this means that I’m already technically screened. They also have changed their copy. The copy on their landing site around FastTrack used to be much more explicit around skipping all technical assessments.
• nperez 6y ago
  I have come very close to taking an interview with them, but something always seemed off. The aggressive advertising campaigns, the claims of how easy they can make the process.. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
• crabasa 6y ago
  I'm not optimistic in Triplebyte's ability to execute here because I think they fundamentally think of developers as "content" and recruiters as the primary customer. Shameless plug: If anyone would like to create a developer profile that you have full control over and that doesn't expose you to recruiter spam, please check out what I'm building at https://fizbuz.com https://fizbuz.com.
  • slow_donkey 6y ago
    Unfortunately that's the easiest way to build a real business around recruiting. Same with car sales. If you do your job well, the user won't come back for a few years. Therefore the user has to be the recruiting companies which guarantee repeat business
  • bbarnett 6y ago
    FYI, your profile link points to an old URL for your website..
  • juped 6y ago
    Requiring a third-party service to sign up is unfortunately not acceptable. Best of luck once you fix that.
• danielmarkbruce 6y ago
  I'd guess there is a class action lawsuit coming.
• bmdavi3 6y ago
  The audacity of the plan itself. The dark patterns. The doubling-down-admit-no-wrong-non-apology defense of it all by the person in charge. It all feels like quite the specimen - something that should be preserved for study by future generations. For what not to do, but also because sometimes its nice to have a prototypical example of unethical, tone deaf, short sighted trickery and how it can destroy a company. All in one self-contained package. So maybe that's the gift Triplebyte leaves us with.
• steve_adams_86 6y ago
  I'm blown away that I can't go ahead and delete my account. Seriously? I opted out of this change, but at this point I don't trust that to be respected anyway. I really want my account deleted immediately.
  • steve_adams_86 6y ago
    False alarm, it's been deleted 4 hours later. There isn't as much friction as it seemed like there could be.
• agentultra 6y ago
  What does “based on actual skills,” mean? I’ve seen the kind of code competitive programming sites put up and the solutions people share. There is a complete disregard for best practices. Memory leaks are common in solutions. APIs that should be using const or references to prevent errors. In competitive coding all that matters is finding a solution. But in industry there’s much more to it than that: how do services like Triblebyte present that?
• libso 6y ago
  Chill everyone. Ammon didn't mean to betray anyone's trust. He just executed public profiles feature very poorly and compared them to profiles on anonymous platforms which was naive. Before a lot of people see this and delete their profile if I were him I'd do this> +Continue keeping it an opt-out feature. But give a long lead time. A month or two. Regular emails warning that profile will go public and a personalized screenshot of what exactly would be included. +If users want to approve the public profile, they will stop receiving these emails. They should also be able to choose who to show in their profiles. +If users forget to approve or deny, make an extremely minimalist profile public with only initials of the name listed.
  • kerkeslager 6y ago
    > Ammon didn't mean to betray anyone's trust. Sure, they sent out an innocuous-looking email that didn't actually describe the important details of what was happening, on a Friday, hid opting out in low contrast on a page where it would be unexpected to find it, and made deleting accounts so difficult that I would have never found it if someone hadn't posted it here, and it requires a government ID to do it. But sure, all these dark patterns were unintentional--they didn't mean to.
  • ashtonkem 6y ago
    The patently bad faith arguments Ammon has been making here really undermines your point. No, whether or not I was looking for a job is not at all the same as a Stack Overflow profile, at all.
• trplthrowaway 6y ago
  I take this to be a criminal threat to dox users.
• bobblywobbles 6y ago
  Thank you for posting this. I had considered Triplebyte as a platform to use years ago but never got around to filling it all out. I _did_ see this email but didn't really think about it until I read this article. No doubt, this move was made to incentivize more cash flow for Triplebyte. I've lost my trust in the company and will not be recommending them to anyone I speak to again. Customers will use your service, if they trust you and you provide value. Pulling sneaky things like this to keep your shareholders happy are not the things I want to be apart of. If you can't make money, why not consider offering Triplebyte to be paid, instead of going behind our backs in a sneaky way trying to sell our personal data.
• nabilhat 6y ago
  Assume for a moment I'm a bad-faith, nosy employer who reads HN on a Saturday morning. All it takes for me to match up my little stack of current employee's resumes is a person's city of residence, skills, and employment dates. If I'm that kind of employer, that's enough to raise my red flags. If prior employers are named outright, that's a 100% ID. If employment dates are paired with employment location, that's a 100% ID. I've known employers like this. I've worked for employers like this. Employers are already monitoring social media. Third party services are paid by employers to monitor for staff that might be looking at other jobs. Recruiters make it their mission to know who's looking and what employers are likely to need their services in the near future. This is much of why trust and discretion is the most important asset on both sides of hiring related activities. Triplebyte burning down their reputation as a recruitment avenue is one thing. Locking job searchers into reputation and livelihood risks inside Triplebyte's own reputation dumpster fire, on the friday before a holiday weekend, during historic unemployment levels, in the middle of a fucking pandemic, is unforgivable. The CEO showing up in person with hamfisted gaslighting (seriously?) in the middle of this self made disaster makes me hope those comments don't get flagged out of future HN search results.
  • TAForObvReasons 6y ago
    > those comments don't get flagged out of future HN search results. Triplebyte is a YC company and HN is a YC site, so economic interests are aligned with nuking highly critical comments
    • wolfgang42 6y ago
      Regarding HN’s policy on discussions of YC companies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23280121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23280121 What 'nabilhat is talking about is the way the Triplebyte CEO’s comments in this thread (which are the opposite of “highly critical”) are being downvoted to very light grey.
    • troydavis 6y ago
      > economic interests are aligned with nuking highly critical comments This is theoretically true, but the fact that it's been on the home page for 12 hours and has accumulated hundreds of critical comments, none of which any mod has touched, seems to (a) eliminate that possibility and (b) demonstrate that the risk is theoretical, not actual. (Keep in mind that YC has thousands of investments, so whatever you think of their ethics or the incentives, a filter like this would be impractical and obvious. Also see "Not behaving in a way that damages the reputation of his/her company" on https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/ https://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/ - it's hard to imagine YC supporting this.)
• napoleoncomplex 6y ago
  nope
• oceanghost 6y ago
  Paranoia pays off again. I signed up and did a couple of test with a fake name/e-mail just to see what the company was about.
• dep_b 6y ago
  Personally I actually even asked them to make my profile publicly accessible as I hoped it would help a bit to prevent having to take all of those unnecessary tests, again and again every time I apply somewhere. Same goes for my Toptal profile, you have to pass a bar to get in there so it has value. People repeatedly mentioned me they found me there. The interview I had with Triplebyte was pretty good in my opinion, got great feedback from the test and I generally felt it was a reliable company. It's a pity they are starting to do stuff like this. I'm not sure if it's a PR blunder or a pattern emerging but the damage has been done.
• wrecursion 6y ago
  Wow.... Good thing this was on HN, because I marked TB as spam quite some time ago, and would have never seen this email. Now it's going to take them 30 days to delete my account and I may need to provide Government ID to complete this process???? LMFAO. That is outrageous. This is vile and disgusting. I hope TB crumbles to dust for this betrayal of its users.
• javajosh 6y ago
  May I humbly recommend that rather than delete your account, that you modify it to have noisy data. This would have a much more positive impact, I think, than a deletion.
  • TechBro8615 6y ago
    I changed my name to "delete my account", set profile data to junk, switched to a throwaway email, and changed my avatar to a picture of a ballsack in a cup. That should sort it.
• omarish 6y ago
  Everyone here needs to relax. Go hate on someone else. It takes 5 seconds to disable the public URL.
• silverreads 6y ago
  Really bad move. Shows the investors are putting the squeeze on them for new revenue, what they can do is now more important to them than what they should do. Well, good thing I used my 'junk mail' domain to sign up with them.
• lianmunoz 6y ago
  Not that I'm at all excusing all the shadiness of this opt-out nonsense, but just wanted to throw out that the notice that they may require ID to delete your account might be coming from the California Consumer Privacy Act. Source: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-01-01/ccpa-california-internet-rights-what-you-need-know https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-01-01...
• togusa2017 6y ago
  Thank you OP. It was in my spam and now i know that i will avoid Triplebyte like plague.
• atarian 6y ago
  You just saved my job. Thanks a lot.
• mrnobody_67 6y ago
  WOW! Amazing that company founded by a former YC Partner could be so tone deaf. Just because their business is failing and they want to pivot into a LinkedIn competitor does't make it my problem. Dark opt-out patterns send on a FRIDAY before a 3 day long weekend to hide facts from us, with crazy convoluted methodology for deleting accounts, and buried opt-out... This is shady as hell, and thinking that you can "explain" it to us here and that we are wrong and you are right, and if we had just a little more "Facts" we'd change our mind, tells me everything I need to know about the leadership and future of this company
• inimino 6y ago
  Ammon's previous venture was Socialcam [1], of which Wikipedia says > Socialcam's popularity on Facebook suddenly increased in the spring of 2012, via unusually aggressive actions to induce contacts to join. It was criticized as "invasive" and a "bully" by many reviewers, for sharing what users were viewing without them realizing that that would happen. It was only after articles like "Why I Hate Socialcam Even If It Might Be the Next Instagram"[2] (spoiler alert: it was not) started appearing that Ammon and friends sold to Autodesk for $60 million. I'm sure that investment worked out swimmingly for Autodesk. Win some, lose some, eh? But hey, at least Ammon got some resources out of it, which he went on to use to make the world a better place, and some valuable life lessons about privacy and honesty and respect, right? Right, Ammon? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialcam#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialcam#Criticism [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2012/04/30/why-i-hate-socialcam-even-if-it-might-be-the-next-instagram/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2012/04/30/why-i-hate...
  • wolfgang42 6y ago
    Ammon and Guillaume came from Socialcam, so two-thirds of the Triplebyte founders. (Though only Ammon has showed up here, so it’s possible that Guillame doesn’t share the same opinions.)
  • ss3000 6y ago
    Who knew Triplebyte was another social media company in stealth mode all this time? Brilliant launch strategy, coming out of stealth and dragging all of its users out of stealth along with it. /s
    • runawaybottle 6y ago
      Oh man, bait and trap? Is it so hard for a company to just have humble ambitions? Is it so bad to be a simple business that optimizes the recruitment process? Must it to be a multi billion dollar LinkedIn competitor?
  • rsynnott 6y ago
    It was bought by _Autodesk_? Bizarre.
• togusa2017 6y ago
  why is this post not on the frontpage of HN ? Very strange.
  • detaro 6y ago
    it is on the front page...
  • ashtonkem 6y ago
    Dang covered it higher up, it triggered a flame war detection script for a bit.
• sensible123 6y ago
  I don't get the hate in this thread. Every time I've interacted with Ammon I've never sensed any ill intent. Dude legitimately wants to help developers get jobs. I got the same email and just cleaned up my profile. It took at most 15 minutes. A lot less time than however long all the haters have spent commenting on the issue. The feedback from HN could have been better. Dogpiling is a very low form of feedback.
• newbie22 6y ago
  I am so disgusted by triple byte. Fuck this site that doesn't have a care in the world about it's users and using slimy techniques to prey on unsuspecting users.
• fhgkhljl 6y ago
  "Our mission is to build an open, valuable, and skills-based credential for all engineers" - this is literally a copy of the other yc startup hackerrank. In fact their ceo said at a public event the skills-based credential will be called a hackerscore. Every developer will have a public hackerscore. Companies would pay for developers based on hackerscore. So like if your hackerscore was 1500 you would get offers for $150,000, if your hackerscore was 2000, you get the $200,000 offers, so on. Sort of like an SAT or GRE score. You could link your hackerscore to your hackernews account for more karma. Like if you made smart comments on hackernews your hackerscore would go up by a few points. If you solved more puzzles on hackerrank your hackerscore goes up. If you help more people on Stackoverflow your hackerscore goes up. Are the triplebyte guys calling it hackerscore as well or is it triplerank or some such? I personally think the underlying motivation is sound but first you need to earn the trust of the community.
  • quickthrower2 6y ago
    Not “Black Mirror” at all then lol!
• bit_logic 6y ago
  This behavior from Triplebyte is unacceptable. If you live in California, there is CCPA now with financial penalties for companies that don’t comply. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Ac... It’s similar to Europe’s GDPR. CCPA allows sending a deletion request and they will be fined if they don’t comply. Looking at their privacy page: https://triplebyte.com/privacy https://triplebyte.com/privacy It mentions these options for deleting: https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center privacy@triplebyte.com By CCPA law, they must acknowledge and comply with a deletion request within a time limit. The fines can add up very quickly per user request if they don't comply. EDIT: Updating my post since I looked at the deletion request forms for some other sites and it seems similar. Probably try the form first and if it doesn't work, then the email.
  • heliodor 6y ago
    They deleted my account within a few hours today even though they say it may take 30 days and require ID.
  • alasdair_ 6y ago
    They also block their deletion link with recaptcha, just to add some additional friction.
• bogomipz 6y ago
  Wow, tone deafness, the betrayal of user trust, the dark patterns, the Friday before a long week email dump. Everything about this is just shitty.
• bogomipz 6y ago
  Wow, the tone deafness, the betrayal of user trust, the dark patterns, the Friday before a long weekend email dump. Everything about this is just shitty.
• zatel 6y ago
  I interviewed with triplebyte last fall. I passed all the automated testing and did ok on the real person one (not being formally trained I struggle with concepts I've never applied in a real project). After they told me I wasn't yet good enough for their fast track program I emailed them to have my profile deleted. I assumed they were doing this already tbh. They sent an email back saying my account was deleted and I haven't gotten this email. I guess now I'll get to see if they really did delete it. This news does make me consider re applying for triplebyte. Showcasing skill is a pain point when I've applied for positions (sure a github & some links but who knows who really did any of that). I can't think of a worse way to handle this though.
• OoTheNigerian 6y ago
  Ammon, You are Tinder/Ashley Madison stating you want to tackle Facebook and become a social network overnight by making all profiles made in private public. And your tone deaf response is to keep repeating "WE ARE NOT PUTTING DETAILS JUST YOUR NAME". Well, what should people that have been married for 15 years do? While this is so disappointing is that you could have easily executed this by making it opt it. Possibly with a new name. Email everyone and say we are starting byte.com - LinkedIn for Engineers. A load of people would have signed up and you take it from there. But you wanted to take the lazy way out and think about today only. Be smart and retreat.
• babesh 6y ago
  It’s all about the $$$$$$. Privacy be damned.
• tlogan 6y ago
  I understand that Triplebyte is in trouble due to Coronavirus and they will do anything necessary to stay alive. Even if their "product shift” actions are not ethical: they really have nothing to lose. What I do not understand how this is legal? We have all these new laws ("California Consumer Privacy Act" of 2020, GDPR, etc.) and it seems like this kinda of actions are legal. The goal of these laws is to protect us against companies which have nothing to lose and they are force to do things which are considered non-ethical.
• mylons 6y ago
  every interaction i’ve had with triplebyte has been shit. glad to know nothing’s changed.
• secfirstmd 6y ago
  Pretty sure this a big GDPR violation
• skaul 6y ago
  If you want to submit an account deletion request, you can do so here: https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center/ https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center/
• vkat 6y ago
  ugh! If not for hacker news front page, I would have ignored this.
• yagobski 6y ago
  This company is a scam. They even don't allow me to remove my account.
• yagobski 6y ago
  This company is a scam i can even delete my account.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• alasdair_ 6y ago
  I just deleted my account. This is bullshit. (The account deletion page is buried in a link to a link to a faq page on privacy and is blocked by a captcha, which is also bullshit).
• freshbagels 6y ago
  I find it strange that they'd tarnish their reputation to try and compete with LinkedIn, but they seem to be a LinkedIn data partner? (not sure exactly what that entails). Open your console on their site and paste this in: window._linkedin_data_partner_id Is there something else at play here?
• CawCawCaw 6y ago
  This is poor. Really, really poor.
• cryptonector 6y ago
  So... you post a profile on triplebyte hoping to get recruiter interest, and maybe a new job, but prefer that your current employer not find out. How would that work, exactly? After all, your current employer may have recruiters who look at triplebyte and who aren't stupid. The privacy issue is overdone: your profiles must be as good as public already. That said, the company should have educated its users first, so they understand this.
• rootsudo 6y ago
  Delete account here: https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center
• r00t_ 6y ago
  This should become a new web app, or something. A podcast, email newsletter, what have you. I.E. How Not to Ruin a Company Which gives examples of companies doing what what Ammon did, etc. Pretty cool, IMO! Hahhahahaha. (sorry,just finished watching the Last Airbender, so I'm a little jumpy/laughy).
• davidajackson 6y ago
  I have found that Triplebyte's emails are kind of spammy because they send so many. Before this point that made me a bit on edge. Now I very glad I didn't have time to finish any of those quizzes and will definitely not be using the product. I also believe that any employer who looks at any solid resume would know that the candidate knows how to find the minimum value in an array (an example question), so I could never understand why asking questions like that was adding any value and it made me skeptical.
• sulam 6y ago
  If you, like most people in this thread, find this incredibly unethical and/or potentially damaging to your relationship with your current employer and as a result you are trying to delete your account, do one thing first: Obfuscate your information before you hit the delete button! Change your name, change your address, change the email to a throwaway, etc. Yes, they -might- delete your information when you ask, but do they deserve your trust that they will get this right? If you are deleting your account you implicitly are saying you don’t trust their ability to manage this situation the way you would. Keep in mind one likely outcome of this event is that they go out of business. Whoever buys their assets may well end up with a trove of data that includes your details.
  • Xelbair 6y ago
    and what does stop them from using backups with unchanged data anyways? At least for internal/statistical purposes.
    • notnap 6y ago
      The goal is to prevent public profile with your real data first. If they publish backup of your profile it would be next level violation of trust
    • sulam 6y ago
      If they are _determined_ to use your data, they will have backed up before they announced this and saved it off somewhere. Normal backup mechanisms won't get the job done, though, because they typically age out. GDPR and CCPA both require backups to explicitly not allow for restoration, although of course they could ignore both.
    • EmilioMartinez 6y ago
      Nothing if they take the trouble to make it work. This is just stocastic damage control, reducing somewhat the likelyhood of your real info being used, and there are many reasons why it probably works.
• jagtesh 6y ago
  You're missing an important argument. You could have had a profile there from before you joined the current employer. And now you're just maintaining it. Doesn't mean you're actively looking for new job.
• bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
  I deleted my profile with these people over a year ago, yet I got this email too. Hmm...
• 737min 6y ago
  This is awful... And really hard to understand how they could expect this to go well - it seems like Triplebyte just doesn’t understand engineers and engineering culture. I expect a fully anonymous service like interviewing.io to get a lot more signups after this fiasco.
• grawprog 6y ago
  >Is it confidential? Yes. We will not share any information about you with companies until you’re ready. We will also ask you for companies to block in case your current or past employers are on our platform. Hmmm think they're going to need to change up their homepage. This doesn't seem very accurate at all anymore. Actually, keeping this on now even after they've made this decision seems pretty disingenuous.
• cnst 6y ago
  Anyone remembers Google Buzz? Google Legal will until 2031 or so. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/10/ftc-gives-final-approval-settlement-google-over-buzz-rollout https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2011/10/ftc-g... Guess who'll be counting to 2040 if everything goes according to plan next week?!
• getajobinx 6y ago
  Always been cautious of platforms that track your application history etc - it's all data - it was likely to be used for gain at some point!
• dswilkerson 6y ago
  FYI because of this hacker news post, I just wrote Triplebyte as follows: I saw a post on Hacker News that Triplebyte is going to be posting to the interenet [sic] the profiles of people who have interviewed with you. I do not give you permission to post any information about me and explicitly request that you do not. Please acknowledge this request. The reply offered to delete my account, and I said yes. They replied that they had deleted my account.
• Eightannhafl 6y ago
  I like everything I read today great work !!