21 ms·

Triplebyte now showing profiles by default without consent

• andreareina 5y ago
  Previously: Tell HN: Interviewed with Triplebyte? Your profile is about to become public (12 months ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23279837 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23279837 Tell HN: Triplebyte reverses, emails apology (12 months ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23303037 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23303037 (How does one get the actual date and not just "12 months ago"?)
  • aerovistae 5y ago
    Yep, they're at it again. Did they learn nothing?
    • dheera 5y ago
      Probably their VCs wanted more MRR rather than more respect of privacy, and it translated to this. Ultimately they are optimizing for profit, not (profit*ethics), and all of their actions will be guided by that optimization.
    • rachofsunshine 5y ago
      This was the echo of old bad decisions, not a new one. It wasn't intentional on our part, and we're working on a fix. (See my top level comment for more detail on what happened.)
      • aerovistae 5y ago
        Appreciate the response :)
  • alfu 5y ago
    The HN api includes the timestamp (unix time). For instance: https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/23279837.json?print=pretty https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/23279837.json?pri...
    • ceejayoz 5y ago
      I wish all sites that do the “x units ago” thing would put the time stamp in a title attribute.
      • nitrogen 5y ago
        If any accessibility experts are reading, is there a best way to do this? E.g. title attribute is best for mouse users to hover on desktop, but is there a way that works for all users on devices? Maybe the abbr tag? So far I haven't seen an html-only solution that works on mobile.
        • joombaga 5y ago
          Not an accessibility or html expert, but in the AWS console you can switch between "x days ago" and exact timestamp by clicking/tapping the timestamp.
        • andreareina 5y ago
          Not an a11y expert but I imagine that's what the <time> element[1] is for. [1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/time https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/ti...
        • kodah 5y ago
          I've been developing my new website and use "x days ago" which is a feature of most date libraries like luxon or moment. I modeled what GitHub does where you can mouse over the text and it produces the actual timestamp. On mobile that doesn't work, so I print the date in disabled text.
• prepend 5y ago
  Fortunately, about a year ago, I swapped all my profile info with random info a photos of some various randos who share my name. This company started doing jerk things from the start. They wouldn’t let me delete my profile, but fortunately let me change all my details.
  • tessierashpool 5y ago
    I just followed your example. Even changed my email. Won't be able to log in again, but I can live with that loss.
    • prepend 5y ago
      Same here. Can’t log in any more. I suppose it’s only a matter of time though until companies wise up and go through historical info and not just present values. I’m assuming they still save previous values. But just hoping it’s not frequent enough for companies to bother. In my case, I just didn’t want business associates browsing the info.
  • neilv 5y ago
    Using photos of someone who shares one's name seems like it could turn out bad for that person. In some contexts of how info&photos are used, seems like it could constitute impersonating that person, and knowingly fabricating/asserting false information about them.
    • inetsee 5y ago
      You could just grab an image from https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/ https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/
      • prepend 5y ago
        It’s funny, I’ve thought about it since then, but didn’t know about it at the time. I changed the email address to something random and can no longer to adjust. If I was trying to reset a profile in the future, I’d use this site.
• tessierashpool 5y ago
  I just checked and my (unfinished) profile is still not visible. Weirdly, it says that it's not visible for the next 12 months, but I'm pretty sure it's been more than 12 months since I last logged in. It also says my profile is not shareable yet, so maybe I just got lucky in that I bailed early. I did one quiz out of curiosity, and then locked down my account as much as possible after I found out a little more about the company's reputation and track record. So I think that "next 12 months" thing is just a bug, and a user not finishing their profile is somehow an edge case that they didn't plan for. That's some pretty bad product work, but it fits the rest of the vibe the company gives off.
• maurys 5y ago
  I'm hoping this is just a stale mail? It'd be weird to have the same discussion here all over again. Everything the CEO mentioned last time is still applicable. What's worse is I'm not sure we'll be able to collectively drum up enough outrage to get it reversed this time.
  • oriel 5y ago
    If this is true, I'm just going to delete Triplebyte and all things associated with it. If the practice becomes, "wait until theyve forgotten about it then try again." I dont trust them, and wont again.
  • rachofsunshine 5y ago
    The TLDR here is that one of last year's dark patterns was that you could only hide your profile for up to a year. We changed that immediately after last year's thread, and you can now hide it indefinitely, but we didn't retroactively apply that fix (which we'll do now). See top-level comment for more details.
• tfehring 5y ago
  Glad I deleted my account at the first sign of this sort of user-hostile behavior. Really a shame such a great and needed concept was ruined by poor execution.
  • llaolleh 5y ago
    I am deleting my account also. Why do they insist on doing this crap that really hurts their reputation? Cmon. It's your users that helped you get the recruiting fees and put you on the map. Don't go around backstabbing us and disrespecting our privacy.
• akomtu 5y ago
  What's their business model? A pimp for software developers? Let me guess: their next move will be to nudge users with "Hey, a recruiter from X is really interested in your background! Based on our quick chat with them, they are willing to offer at least 500k. Please login to review their terms." and promptly demand state ID, bank statements and W2s to login. If the user is stupid enough to give that, they'll just say "sorry, the recruiter has moved on with another candidate, but here are other opportunities for you."
  • thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > What's their business model? A pimp for software developers? No, but I wish someone would fill that role. Though pimps are almost always just called "agents".
    • TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
      Someone should build this, it's catch phrase would be "Pimps for software developers". It'd be named Upgrayedd. When their business model fails they could pivot to making lattes. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Upgrayedd https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Upgrayedd
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• weaksauce 5y ago
  It is insane that they are going to do this again after all the outrage from the last time this leaked. What a shame that they are going down the dark patterns rabbithole. the service they offer on first brush looks useful from a developer's standpoint but these kinds of posts i've seen sour me on trying their service. a shame really.
• kwdc 5y ago
  Triplebyte are about interviewing and being middleman. This requires a certain churn rate. So imagine that now you're employed but didn't get it from triplebyte, one day you get called into the bosses office: "We've noticed youre listed on triplebyte as seeking another position..." This may be detrimental if in fact you want to stay. Eg raises, bonuses. Automatic listings to me are privacy violations.
  • AlexCoventry 5y ago
    Wouldn't it increase your odds of a raise/bonus, if you're valued by your current company?
    • travisjungroth 5y ago
      Either could happen. Normally the choice to reveal this information is up to the employee, not some other company.
    • slownews45 5y ago
      Not at many places. Your boss will generally try to hire someone in advance to cover for your departure. If you don't depart they may ask you to (fired). Fine if you were looking / interviewing, not great if you were not.
      • cortesoft 5y ago
        As a hiring manager, I find this hard to believe. It is so hard to find good talent, we would never push someone out over this. In fact, I always encourage everyone on my teams to keep an eye out for opportunities. You never know when you will need them.
        • dvtrn 5y ago
          As a hiring manager, I find this hard to believe. One doesn't have to participate in organizational tactics that favor replacing employees over negotiating the conditions that makes notions of loyalty an inherent trait of the workforce to at least acknowledge that there are questionable actors in positions of power in the employer/employee dynamic who aren't willing to make the emotional and capital investment in their people. Brings to mind something I saw on someone's wall once "pay people well enough they'll never need to leave, and treat them well enough they'll never want to". Our experiences aren't universal. I'm also a hiring manager, and I don't find it hard to believe at all. Very early in my career I gave two weeks notice to a job I worked at for four years, offering to train up a junior on the team. I was walked out the same day.
• ausbah 5y ago
  anyone forget that triplebyte even existed?
• legerdemain 5y ago
  This is what happens after you "snooze" your profile visibility for a set length of time. This is not a new feature.
• maerF0x0 5y ago
  you can request delete here https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center https://triplebyte.com/privacy-center hopefully that sends a clear message
• rachofsunshine 5y ago
  Hi folks - I'm a PM at Triplebyte who recently inherited this part of our site. You're absolutely right that this is a dark pattern, but it's not a current one - it's the echo of the dark pattern we screwed up on last year. If you hid your profile at the time, prior to last year's thread and our response to it, the maximum duration was one year (and yes, this was a really terrible idea among the other really-terrible-ideas that were called out at the time). But we changed that last year during our internal response. Hiding your profile indefinitely on our current site does in fact hide it indefinitely, and has ever since it was added as an option. (see https://imgur.com/n5e4CMB https://imgur.com/n5e4CMB - and just to be clear this is my personal prod-testing account, not an actual person whose profile I screenshotted) What happened here is that if you had hidden your profile just before we added the indefinite option, you were caught by the old dark pattern, which only let you hide it for up to a year. (And so, a year later, we're correctly informing you that it is now visible again.) We fixed the site at the time so that no one would newly be caught in this pattern, but what we failed to do was retroactively change the setting for people who'd selected 'one year' prior to that point. This was a genuine oversight, and we'll fix it. I need to speak to our engineering team to make sure we can actually do so, but my immediate plan is to effectively just make the indefinite hiding retroactive by assuming anyone who set it to the max last year wanted that. In any case, it will get fixed one way or another - I was as pissed as anyone here by last year's events and have no intention of leaving y'all high and dry.
  • mgsouth 5y ago
    This has got to be one of the best mea culpas I've seen in a long, long time. If anyone internal gives you heat, you can tell them that, for this current non-client, it's actually moved Tripplebyte from "never in a million years" to "hmm, maybe I'll look into them." Being brutally honest makes the difference.
    • akersten 5y ago
      This actually definitely moved it to "not in a million years" for me. What kind of clown show engineering team makes this kind of oversight? They knew there were profiles that would be part of the old 12-month delay feature (and if they didn't know about this feature that also speaks volumes about their internal knowledge of their own product) and neglected to fix it or notify them about their new options. What else are they neglecting? This is not a weird edge case or a nobody-could-have-caught this. This should have been obvious and come up immediately in the "how are we thoroughly addressing this dark pattern" root-cause.
• egberts1 5y ago
  Still waiting for TripleByte to allow people with hearing loss to be able to be the ones to make the call for an interview. Has to do with Federal Relay Services where we can shop for an interpreter that can actually talk the talk (computer lingos). Despite acing the lower (backend) system engineering question, I feel that this has been a standstill in getting to work for Google. Also default dark pattern impacted me as well.
  • Google234 5y ago
    I don’t think Google uses triple byte? just apply directly instead.
• stmw 5y ago
  In my experience, companies with poor security or privacy culture will tend to continue to make these kinds of missteps, again and again. Because it's not just one PM or engineer or executive, it's the company environment. Companies with good culture will still make mistakes -- be it violating users' trust or suffering a breach -- we are all human. But there won't be a pattern of them. In this case, it seems like a pattern for Triplebyte.
  • TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
    This is the same as the adage which goes something like: Why would you expect someone who has demonstrated a complete lack of empathy to suddenly do so? Which is why most people should probably leave toxic bosses, workplaces, as not be a user of the services they provide. Someone should compile a list.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• throwaway158497 5y ago
  Gentlemen and women, let me warn all of your folks. Do not leave your real names on triplebyte, karat.io, hacker rank, leetcode and any other website precisely because of nonsense like that. Also, on karat.io, the T&C are pretty much against you. Here is what their site reads. Karat may (a) record you and your Interview in any format, including video or audio; (b) disclose the Interview and a recording and/or a transcript thereof to Company; and (c) use all Interview content and data, including your name, likeness, and voice, for its own internal purposes. *Karat owns* all rights, title, and interest in the Interview and any works derived therefrom, including all copyright, and you hereby assign, transfer, and convey to Karat any and all rights you may have in the Interview. *You waive and release Karat from any and all claims or other liability for any loss, harm, damages, or expenses * arising out of your participation in and any use of the Interview authorized under this Agreement, including without limitation any such claims alleging or arising as the result of Karat's negligence or Company's use of the Interview. No sane person should be using these platforms.