5 ms·

I'm not very knowledgable of this sort of thing -- what have other professions historically done to mitigate this sort of thing? Unions? Licensing boards?

htk 13y ago
Call me a dreamer but creating a startup is one way around this.
- TheCowboy 13y ago
  One way this problem has usually been prevented is by having a competitive marketplace, so it's not really dreaming to suggest that startups can be part of a solution. But it's tough to shake up markets that tend toward oligopoly, and the big players can simply acquire any threats before they can deliver a punch in order to maintain the status quo.
pjc50 13y ago
Isn't it illegal?
- bradleyjg 13y ago
  Blatantly, and has been so for a long, long time. I might be able to buy that Brin circa 2005 was unaware of that, but not Jobs, Schmidt, or Whitman. Edit: It's been clear at least since Nichols v. Spencer International Press in 1967, and arguably since Radovich v. National Football League in 1957.
  - kevinthew 13y ago
    Yup. This type of stuff is a major no-no and is taught as such in pretty much every entry-level econ and business class. All of these executives know better and were simply trying to skirt the system. There's going to be a huge settlement over this.
    - hga 13y ago
      And significant recognition of the issue goes back to at least 1776's The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."
      - pekk 13y ago
        Those awful unions. Oh well, back to illegally depressing wages
    - tinco 13y ago
      I don't know the U.S. justice system really well, but from the e-mail it seems E. Schmidt was aware of the illegality of their actions, being worried about being sued and a paper trail. Doesn't that make this an 'aware' and 'intentional' crime, therefore the only resolution would be for him to go to prison for some time? Is it really possible for someone to settle their way out of this with a general prosecutor?
    - hisabness 13y ago
      who will the settlement be with? i.e. who will get the monies?
      - bradleyjg 13y ago
        I believe there were settlements with the Justice Department, there's also a pending class action lawsuit. The class is all of the employees of the relevant companies during the relevant time period. (I.e. Apple, Intel, Google, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and Adobe technical employees from 2005 through 2009.) Unfortunately, the US class action system is somewhat corrupt and in many cases the suing attorneys get the lion's share of the money, while the class members get injunctive relief, a coupon, or a nominal payment. Or sometimes they get nothing at all, and a charity gets the money (this is called a cy pres award). More information about the class action lawsuit: https://www.hightechemployeelawsuit.com https://www.hightechemployeelawsuit.com
      - 13y ago
  - joseph 13y ago
    I'm surprised this is illegal. I worked for one company, and was offered a job by another. However, after accepting the offer, their legal department came back to me and said they could not hire me after all, due to having an agreement with my current employer that they cannot hire an employee away from the other within a two year period. My understanding was that this was a contractual agreement between the two companies. How can they have a contract for this if it is illegal, is it different than what Apple and Google did?
rayiner 13y ago
Class action lawsuits. I find this agreement and the Facebook sponsored stories feature baffling. They remind me of when Korean companies have gotten caught up in price fixing and invoked the excuse "we had no idea this would be illegal!"
- selmnoo 13y ago
  Huh? "Facebook sponsored stories feature"?
  - rayiner 13y ago
    http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4574644 http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4574644
    - selmnoo 13y ago
      Oh. Yeah. That's how SV works. (I didn't know about this particular story though... must have missed it). It's basically just another variant of a dark pattern. They're everywhere. It's basically what fast growth is all about. It's about skirting some rule that you know very well is illegal or at least unethical -- and later when you get caught doing it, saying "Ooops!!! I didn't know this was illegal, LOL!" Go to http://darkpatterns.org http://darkpatterns.org to get more examples of dark patterns. Facebook in particular is expert at it, e.g. see http://darkpatterns.org/library/privacy_zuckering http://darkpatterns.org/library/privacy_zuckering - the clear lesson to take away for startups is, don't give a fuck, do whatever unethical shit you can do to attain a large userbase, get big, get funding, and then either a) deny any wrongdoing was ever done, or b) justify it with some excuse like "we were young :)" or "we didn't know!" Sometimes you have to pay a fine, but you can be assured that the fine will be smaller than the profit made/growth achieved by some particular action. It's a winning strategy. p.s.: Here's a fun challenge: try to turn off targeted advertising on an Apple device. Can you do it? (fwiw, it's much easier to do on iOS7 vs iOS6).
  - colanderman 13y ago
    Presumably the parent is talking about when FB used users' likenesses alongside product endorsements in their friends' feeds, without the user's knowledge.
briantakita 13y ago
Professional organizations, Unions, Licensing. Don't be anybody's employee. You lose much leverage & tend to get stuck by being an employee.

htk 13y ago

Call me a dreamer but creating a startup is one way around this.

TheCowboy 13y ago
One way this problem has usually been prevented is by having a competitive marketplace, so it's not really dreaming to suggest that startups can be part of a solution. But it's tough to shake up markets that tend toward oligopoly, and the big players can simply acquire any threats before they can deliver a punch in order to maintain the status quo.

pjc50 13y ago

Isn't it illegal?

bradleyjg 13y ago
Blatantly, and has been so for a long, long time. I might be able to buy that Brin circa 2005 was unaware of that, but not Jobs, Schmidt, or Whitman. Edit: It's been clear at least since Nichols v. Spencer International Press in 1967, and arguably since Radovich v. National Football League in 1957.
- kevinthew 13y ago
  Yup. This type of stuff is a major no-no and is taught as such in pretty much every entry-level econ and business class. All of these executives know better and were simply trying to skirt the system. There's going to be a huge settlement over this.
  - hga 13y ago
    And significant recognition of the issue goes back to at least 1776's The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."
    - pekk 13y ago
      Those awful unions. Oh well, back to illegally depressing wages
  - tinco 13y ago
    I don't know the U.S. justice system really well, but from the e-mail it seems E. Schmidt was aware of the illegality of their actions, being worried about being sued and a paper trail. Doesn't that make this an 'aware' and 'intentional' crime, therefore the only resolution would be for him to go to prison for some time? Is it really possible for someone to settle their way out of this with a general prosecutor?
  - hisabness 13y ago
    who will the settlement be with? i.e. who will get the monies?
    - bradleyjg 13y ago
      I believe there were settlements with the Justice Department, there's also a pending class action lawsuit. The class is all of the employees of the relevant companies during the relevant time period. (I.e. Apple, Intel, Google, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and Adobe technical employees from 2005 through 2009.) Unfortunately, the US class action system is somewhat corrupt and in many cases the suing attorneys get the lion's share of the money, while the class members get injunctive relief, a coupon, or a nominal payment. Or sometimes they get nothing at all, and a charity gets the money (this is called a cy pres award). More information about the class action lawsuit: https://www.hightechemployeelawsuit.com https://www.hightechemployeelawsuit.com
    - 13y ago
- joseph 13y ago
  I'm surprised this is illegal. I worked for one company, and was offered a job by another. However, after accepting the offer, their legal department came back to me and said they could not hire me after all, due to having an agreement with my current employer that they cannot hire an employee away from the other within a two year period. My understanding was that this was a contractual agreement between the two companies. How can they have a contract for this if it is illegal, is it different than what Apple and Google did?

rayiner 13y ago

Class action lawsuits. I find this agreement and the Facebook sponsored stories feature baffling. They remind me of when Korean companies have gotten caught up in price fixing and invoked the excuse "we had no idea this would be illegal!"

selmnoo 13y ago
Huh? "Facebook sponsored stories feature"?
- rayiner 13y ago
  http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4574644 http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4574644
  - selmnoo 13y ago
    Oh. Yeah. That's how SV works. (I didn't know about this particular story though... must have missed it). It's basically just another variant of a dark pattern. They're everywhere. It's basically what fast growth is all about. It's about skirting some rule that you know very well is illegal or at least unethical -- and later when you get caught doing it, saying "Ooops!!! I didn't know this was illegal, LOL!" Go to http://darkpatterns.org http://darkpatterns.org to get more examples of dark patterns. Facebook in particular is expert at it, e.g. see http://darkpatterns.org/library/privacy_zuckering http://darkpatterns.org/library/privacy_zuckering - the clear lesson to take away for startups is, don't give a fuck, do whatever unethical shit you can do to attain a large userbase, get big, get funding, and then either a) deny any wrongdoing was ever done, or b) justify it with some excuse like "we were young :)" or "we didn't know!" Sometimes you have to pay a fine, but you can be assured that the fine will be smaller than the profit made/growth achieved by some particular action. It's a winning strategy. p.s.: Here's a fun challenge: try to turn off targeted advertising on an Apple device. Can you do it? (fwiw, it's much easier to do on iOS7 vs iOS6).
- colanderman 13y ago
  Presumably the parent is talking about when FB used users' likenesses alongside product endorsements in their friends' feeds, without the user's knowledge.

briantakita 13y ago

Professional organizations, Unions, Licensing. Don't be anybody's employee. You lose much leverage & tend to get stuck by being an employee.