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Compared to Hipchat, Slack has handled this compliance issue much better. I am personally uncomfortable with the idea of managers seeing employees communication

Compared to Hipchat, Slack has handled this compliance issue much better. I am personally uncomfortable with the idea of managers seeing employees communications, and Hipchat didn't put any consideration into this when they released that feature. Slack on the other hand seems quite aware of this issue and done things which make me much more comfortable, at least short-term. It goes to show what careful and empathetic product thinking can do to enhance your customer's experience.

getsat 12y ago
What is the difference between the situations? All I remember of HipChat's change was the same thing: conversations would only be logged moving forward after a particular date (rather than a switch being flipped).
- danielrhodes 12y ago
  It was my understanding that HipChat would make private logs easily available to any administrator of the company account in the same way that public chat logs were available. It was also made clear that this was not something which could be disabled, otherwise impeded, or a user would be notified of. (somebody correct me on this if things are different) On Slack, from what they describe, the feature is only available with a certain type of account, you can only export logs in bulk (i.e. it's not something easy to do, it has been made for a specific purpose), and employees will be notified if the feature is enabled/used.
koopajah 12y ago
You could say they just learnt from the Hipchat announcement and remebered to address the issue head-on which makes it seem like they really care. But in the end the problem is exactly the same and your company will now have access to whatever you write including private chats. Personally that means I'll ensure to avoid private chat on Slack and use external tools again on top of everything I already use which is clearly annoying.
mrjatx 12y ago
It is absolutely ridiculous to be uncomfortable with managers seeing employee communications. First off, any time you log in to a machine at most corporations you're told that ALL network activities are monitored. It's not a joke. They are monitored. Every packet you send out and every packet you receive CAN BE RETRIEVED. This isn't new. I'm 30 and have seen this since I was in high school. I'm sure older folk have seen it for even longer. Next off, you are owed NO privacy on services that your company is paying for for interoffice communication. You never have been. The fact that people bitched and moaned over Hipchat allowing history to be viewed is just ignorant and stupid. You know why managers have the ability to view these things? Harassment. Sexual, physical, altercations, etc. If your company has more than 5 people these things WILL come up and the INABILITY to retrieve this data is BAD. We have ALWAYS been able to retrieve this data via XMPP (Openfire), MSOffice Communicator/Lync, etc. This is NOT some mind blowing new development.
- moe 12y ago
  This kind of monitoring may be normal in BigCorps but it's definitely not part of startup culture. I'm also irritated by the mindset that considers this kind of institutionalized snooping a good thing ("INABILITY to retrieve this data is BAD").
  - mrjatx 12y ago
    I've been a network administrator and had control of everything. That did NOT mean that I was actively viewing everything and sitting in a tower somewhere cackling at all of the deep dirty news I had. I had to pull data a handful of times during lawsuits or sexual harassment complaints. You should not be delving into deep personal/sexual conversations on any work tool without having in the back of your mind that it may come up at some point, whether you're at a startup or not. I'm on my 3rd startup and while I know nobody has been monitoring (because I pay for the tools) I still keep the tools somewhat professional. To the point that I couldn't care less if someone looked into my conversations. If we're going to bitch about that, then the fact that my data is on some unknown server at Hipchat is FAR more worrisome to me than my COO looking at my conversations. You SHOULD trust your employees and if you don't trust one replace them. You should also TRUST your management to not spy on you. But you should also assume that they have the ability, if not, you're daft.

getsat 12y ago

What is the difference between the situations? All I remember of HipChat's change was the same thing: conversations would only be logged moving forward after a particular date (rather than a switch being flipped).

danielrhodes 12y ago
It was my understanding that HipChat would make private logs easily available to any administrator of the company account in the same way that public chat logs were available. It was also made clear that this was not something which could be disabled, otherwise impeded, or a user would be notified of. (somebody correct me on this if things are different) On Slack, from what they describe, the feature is only available with a certain type of account, you can only export logs in bulk (i.e. it's not something easy to do, it has been made for a specific purpose), and employees will be notified if the feature is enabled/used.

koopajah 12y ago

You could say they just learnt from the Hipchat announcement and remebered to address the issue head-on which makes it seem like they really care. But in the end the problem is exactly the same and your company will now have access to whatever you write including private chats. Personally that means I'll ensure to avoid private chat on Slack and use external tools again on top of everything I already use which is clearly annoying.

mrjatx 12y ago

It is absolutely ridiculous to be uncomfortable with managers seeing employee communications. First off, any time you log in to a machine at most corporations you're told that ALL network activities are monitored. It's not a joke. They are monitored. Every packet you send out and every packet you receive CAN BE RETRIEVED. This isn't new. I'm 30 and have seen this since I was in high school. I'm sure older folk have seen it for even longer. Next off, you are owed NO privacy on services that your company is paying for for interoffice communication. You never have been. The fact that people bitched and moaned over Hipchat allowing history to be viewed is just ignorant and stupid. You know why managers have the ability to view these things? Harassment. Sexual, physical, altercations, etc. If your company has more than 5 people these things WILL come up and the INABILITY to retrieve this data is BAD. We have ALWAYS been able to retrieve this data via XMPP (Openfire), MSOffice Communicator/Lync, etc. This is NOT some mind blowing new development.

moe 12y ago
This kind of monitoring may be normal in BigCorps but it's definitely not part of startup culture. I'm also irritated by the mindset that considers this kind of institutionalized snooping a good thing ("INABILITY to retrieve this data is BAD").
- mrjatx 12y ago
  I've been a network administrator and had control of everything. That did NOT mean that I was actively viewing everything and sitting in a tower somewhere cackling at all of the deep dirty news I had. I had to pull data a handful of times during lawsuits or sexual harassment complaints. You should not be delving into deep personal/sexual conversations on any work tool without having in the back of your mind that it may come up at some point, whether you're at a startup or not. I'm on my 3rd startup and while I know nobody has been monitoring (because I pay for the tools) I still keep the tools somewhat professional. To the point that I couldn't care less if someone looked into my conversations. If we're going to bitch about that, then the fact that my data is on some unknown server at Hipchat is FAR more worrisome to me than my COO looking at my conversations. You SHOULD trust your employees and if you don't trust one replace them. You should also TRUST your management to not spy on you. But you should also assume that they have the ability, if not, you're daft.