4 ms·

Vercel employee threatens user over domain similar to own project, gets fired

47 points by matijash 3y ago

rozenmd 3y ago
Side note: the whole "read terms of service to find the 'terminate the service at any time' clause" thing is getting old - name me a service that doesn't have that clause.
- xmprt 3y ago
  Just because everyone is doing it doesn't make it any less insane. I think there needs to be some sort of regulation around clauses like that. Companies should be allowed to terminate services but if they're going to do that then they should at least be required to give some explanation or some support line to contact.
  - patmcc 3y ago
    I think that's probably fair for FAANG-scale; if google bans you, that's impactful enough (and they're big enough) that having some kind of appeal process is reasonable. For every website, even on a free plan, I think that's a bit ridiculous.
    - rozenmd 3y ago
      Yeah I meant the earlier comment as an indie software vendor myself - abuse would kill my business without the clause
Alupis 3y ago
Unless there's more to this story, it's a big fat "trust me, because I said it happened" story. I have no horse in this race, and do not use Vercel - but there's zero evidence provided, and the story isn't even first-party. The author even says "I looked at the email so it's valid" aka "trust me". Seeing the author's twitter account is filled with "look at how great I am, I shipped 18 apps before breakfast" posts - I have no choice but to be cautiously skeptical at the provided claims unless actual evidence is presented. With that said - it sounds like an individual who happens to also work at Vercel may have abused their access and contacted some other party with some sort of cease and desist demand because the app idea and name were similar to theirs. News at 11...
- upon_drumhead 3y ago
  https://twitter.com/vercel_support/status/1713295474998772215 https://twitter.com/vercel_support/status/171329547499877221... > @vercel_support > Our investigation has determined a member of our customer-facing team violated company policy. We have taken appropriate action. > This was an error in human judgment; Vercel’s internal security systems worked as expected. > The employee did not have access to any source code, secrets, or the ability to change settings or deployments. > The employee used customer information, which they have access to for their job duties, to pursue a personal trademark matter. > We have zero tolerance for this behavior, have taken action, and will continue reinforcing procedures to prevent future occurrences.
  - Alupis 3y ago
    Thanks for this context. So... it was a rogue employee trying to get a competing app to stop using a similar name to that employee's personal trademark. Everything seems normal until the employee used the email address on record to reach out to the user - and was rightfully terminated. News at 11? None of this seems related to Vercel at all, yet that's the clickbait.
    - jacobr1 3y ago
      If anything, presuming this all is true, it increases my respect for Vercel for acting promptly and appropriately.
      - matijash 3y ago
        yep, agree on that, don't see a better way to react
    - matijash 3y ago
      Why do you find the title misleading/clickbait?
  - politelemon 3y ago
    The title says they were fired, but vercel says appropriate action was taken. Eg, it could be a reprimand. Did I miss that bit?
judge2020 3y ago
> How are employees allowed to have access to customer's data for their personal projects? Further down in the image it says: > I never shared my email and all my projects are private, so the one way he could have accessed it is by checking on Vercel user's database directly. Does Vercel offer a way to inspect your Databases from the app? If so it could've been via an "impersonate user" button in their backend/admin control panel (which is common because a lot of troubleshooting is 10 times easier if you're able to trace an issue from the error in the console/network tab).
- Alupis 3y ago
  No - the author is telling us a 2nd-hand story from some other person, and basically says "trust me, it happened" without providing any real evidence.
  - naikrovek 3y ago
    [flagged]
skilled 3y ago
The email part is unlikely to have been malicious in a sense that it was pulled from a DB. They likely have a centralized dashboard to be able to look up users and their apps/services in case something weird/shady is going on. But still a fairly petty thing to do. I mean this guy must have either his head stuck up his ass or he’s dealing with something personally and the victim just happened to catch a stray bullet. I didn’t see in the tweet where he got fired, was there a follow-up?
upon_drumhead 3y ago
Previously covered at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37880071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37880071
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
[dupe] Discussion yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37887049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37887049

47 points by matijash 3y ago

Side note: the whole "read terms of service to find the 'terminate the service at any time' clause" thing is getting old - name me a service that doesn't have that clause.

xmprt 3y ago
Just because everyone is doing it doesn't make it any less insane. I think there needs to be some sort of regulation around clauses like that. Companies should be allowed to terminate services but if they're going to do that then they should at least be required to give some explanation or some support line to contact.
- patmcc 3y ago
  I think that's probably fair for FAANG-scale; if google bans you, that's impactful enough (and they're big enough) that having some kind of appeal process is reasonable. For every website, even on a free plan, I think that's a bit ridiculous.
  - rozenmd 3y ago
    Yeah I meant the earlier comment as an indie software vendor myself - abuse would kill my business without the clause

Alupis 3y ago

Unless there's more to this story, it's a big fat "trust me, because I said it happened" story. I have no horse in this race, and do not use Vercel - but there's zero evidence provided, and the story isn't even first-party. The author even says "I looked at the email so it's valid" aka "trust me". Seeing the author's twitter account is filled with "look at how great I am, I shipped 18 apps before breakfast" posts - I have no choice but to be cautiously skeptical at the provided claims unless actual evidence is presented. With that said - it sounds like an individual who happens to also work at Vercel may have abused their access and contacted some other party with some sort of cease and desist demand because the app idea and name were similar to theirs. News at 11...

upon_drumhead 3y ago
https://twitter.com/vercel_support/status/1713295474998772215 https://twitter.com/vercel_support/status/171329547499877221... > @vercel_support > Our investigation has determined a member of our customer-facing team violated company policy. We have taken appropriate action. > This was an error in human judgment; Vercel’s internal security systems worked as expected. > The employee did not have access to any source code, secrets, or the ability to change settings or deployments. > The employee used customer information, which they have access to for their job duties, to pursue a personal trademark matter. > We have zero tolerance for this behavior, have taken action, and will continue reinforcing procedures to prevent future occurrences.
- Alupis 3y ago
  Thanks for this context. So... it was a rogue employee trying to get a competing app to stop using a similar name to that employee's personal trademark. Everything seems normal until the employee used the email address on record to reach out to the user - and was rightfully terminated. News at 11? None of this seems related to Vercel at all, yet that's the clickbait.
  - jacobr1 3y ago
    If anything, presuming this all is true, it increases my respect for Vercel for acting promptly and appropriately.
    - matijash 3y ago
      yep, agree on that, don't see a better way to react
  - matijash 3y ago
    Why do you find the title misleading/clickbait?
- politelemon 3y ago
  The title says they were fired, but vercel says appropriate action was taken. Eg, it could be a reprimand. Did I miss that bit?

judge2020 3y ago

> How are employees allowed to have access to customer's data for their personal projects? Further down in the image it says: > I never shared my email and all my projects are private, so the one way he could have accessed it is by checking on Vercel user's database directly. Does Vercel offer a way to inspect your Databases from the app? If so it could've been via an "impersonate user" button in their backend/admin control panel (which is common because a lot of troubleshooting is 10 times easier if you're able to trace an issue from the error in the console/network tab).

Alupis 3y ago
No - the author is telling us a 2nd-hand story from some other person, and basically says "trust me, it happened" without providing any real evidence.
- naikrovek 3y ago
  [flagged]

skilled 3y ago

The email part is unlikely to have been malicious in a sense that it was pulled from a DB. They likely have a centralized dashboard to be able to look up users and their apps/services in case something weird/shady is going on. But still a fairly petty thing to do. I mean this guy must have either his head stuck up his ass or he’s dealing with something personally and the victim just happened to catch a stray bullet. I didn’t see in the tweet where he got fired, was there a follow-up?

upon_drumhead 3y ago

Previously covered at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37880071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37880071

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

[dupe] Discussion yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37887049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37887049