Maybe it’s related to their decision to turn YCombinator into a “safe space” for very specific people; or the way YC takes steps to silence some voices while hiding the fact that they’re silenced. These are deliberate decisions that cause the site to work very differently than naive people envision it from working.
I’m not crazy enough to sue over that shit; but somebody might be.
> advertise or offer to sell or buy any goods or services for any business purpose that is not specifically authorized;
Heh. I'd say this part is disconnected from reality.
A very significant number of posts and comments recommend aka advertise (in one way or another) various goods or services. Typically third-party goods or services ("I use this"), sometimes first-party ("we made this"). And this is what brings huge value to the website. I get it, ToS are about spam, but it's probably impossible to discern good and bad advertising in legal terms.
> Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff occasionally, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.
Emphasis mine.
---
Edit: It gets more interesting with the WhoIsHiring threads. I haven't seen specific authorizations for them, but considering HN staff have commented in said threads in the past (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26306206), this may also be specifically authorized. (I don't know who owns WhoIsHiring)
2020 (left) v. 2017 (right): Privacy policy was significantly reworked, not the biggest surprise considering CCPA, but n++ is choking on the compare. Some interesting TOU changes though:
They allow only California residents to delete their personal information, and they may require proof of residency to initiate a deletion. I am disappointed.
I don't speak legalese, but I can tell you what the actual practice is. For YC data (e.g. applications to YC, participation in Startup School, Work at a Startup, and so on), we delete people's data when they ask us to. For HN data, it's more complicated—we try not to delete posts that got replies, because that's unfair to the commenters who replied, and so on. But we have a lot of tricks to help people in more precise ways than wholesale deletion, and we help people with such requests every day. This is in HN's FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. There's more explanation at these links from yesterday:
Here's what HN admins were responding last yeat to requests to have your account deleted (article 17 of the GDPR):
>Our understanding based on the analysis done by YC's legal team is that Hacker News does not fall under the GDPR, so for the time being we're sticking with the approach of not deleting account histories wholesale but helping with privacy concerns in any other way we can. The problem with deleting entire histories is that it guts the threads the account had participated in, which is unfair to the other users who posted.
Which part specifically is confusing you? Like, it's a long TOU, so I don't think anyone's gonna write down the whole explanation here, but let's pick one paragraph:
> Commercial Use: Unless otherwise expressly authorized herein or in the Site, you agree not to display, distribute, license, perform, publish, reproduce, duplicate, copy, create derivative works from, modify, sell, resell, exploit, transfer or upload for any commercial purposes, any portion of the Site, use of the Site, or access to the Site. The buying, exchanging, selling and/or promotion (commercial or otherwise) of upvotes, comments, submissions, accounts (or any aspect of your account or any other account), karma, and/or content is strictly prohibited, constitutes a material breach of these Terms of Use, and could result in legal liability.
This means: don't use the content of the site to make derivative works to make money, otherwise we might sue you.
It's mostly straightforward stuff like that. If there's a specific part that you're having trouble with, I'm happy to have a crack at explaining it.
We run our SaaS on Digital Ocean's backend and their TOS says that anything we allow onto their boxes has to comply, so that means our customers have to comply with DO's TOS.
To handle this, we link to theirs in place of a custom one.
[+] [-] crazypython|4 years ago|reply
I wonder what changed and made them add the new terms of use.
[0]: http://web.archive.org/web/20141020194316/https://www.ycombi...
[+] [-] nevir|4 years ago|reply
CCPA's April enforcement deadline, most likely.
[+] [-] quickthrowman|4 years ago|reply
Probably a lawsuit, mandatory arbitration avoids lawsuits. I’m just guessing, I have no concrete info.
[+] [-] amznthrwaway|4 years ago|reply
I’m not crazy enough to sue over that shit; but somebody might be.
[+] [-] drdaeman|4 years ago|reply
> advertise or offer to sell or buy any goods or services for any business purpose that is not specifically authorized;
Heh. I'd say this part is disconnected from reality.
A very significant number of posts and comments recommend aka advertise (in one way or another) various goods or services. Typically third-party goods or services ("I use this"), sometimes first-party ("we made this"). And this is what brings huge value to the website. I get it, ToS are about spam, but it's probably impossible to discern good and bad advertising in legal terms.
[+] [-] eganist|4 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Please don't use HN primarily for promotion. It's ok to post your own stuff occasionally, but the primary use of the site should be for curiosity.
Emphasis mine.
---
Edit: It gets more interesting with the WhoIsHiring threads. I haven't seen specific authorizations for them, but considering HN staff have commented in said threads in the past (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26306206), this may also be specifically authorized. (I don't know who owns WhoIsHiring)
[+] [-] eganist|4 years ago|reply
Pre-2017: http://web.archive.org/web/20161229045611/http://www.ycombin...
2017: http://web.archive.org/web/20170303015020/http://www.ycombin...
2020: http://web.archive.org/web/20200130013739/https://www.ycombi...
2021: http://web.archive.org/web/20210301143626/http://www.ycombin... (current linked)
I'm still doing diffs.
Edit:
2021 (left) v. 2020 (right) diff:
https://imgur.com/a/8LKXKNs
2020 (left) v. 2017 (right): Privacy policy was significantly reworked, not the biggest surprise considering CCPA, but n++ is choking on the compare. Some interesting TOU changes though:
https://imgur.com/a/q4zzm8G
[+] [-] alexeldeib|4 years ago|reply
> h. Future Changes to Arbitration Agreemen
Someone forgot to dot their Is and cross their Ts :)
[+] [-] smnrchrds|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|4 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26962860
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26959559
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26959675
[+] [-] dooglius|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rcMgD2BwE72F|4 years ago|reply
Here's what HN admins were responding last yeat to requests to have your account deleted (article 17 of the GDPR):
>Our understanding based on the analysis done by YC's legal team is that Hacker News does not fall under the GDPR, so for the time being we're sticking with the approach of not deleting account histories wholesale but helping with privacy concerns in any other way we can. The problem with deleting entire histories is that it guts the threads the account had participated in, which is unfair to the other users who posted.
[+] [-] RuffleGordon|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wizzwizz4|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asdfasgasdgasdg|4 years ago|reply
> Commercial Use: Unless otherwise expressly authorized herein or in the Site, you agree not to display, distribute, license, perform, publish, reproduce, duplicate, copy, create derivative works from, modify, sell, resell, exploit, transfer or upload for any commercial purposes, any portion of the Site, use of the Site, or access to the Site. The buying, exchanging, selling and/or promotion (commercial or otherwise) of upvotes, comments, submissions, accounts (or any aspect of your account or any other account), karma, and/or content is strictly prohibited, constitutes a material breach of these Terms of Use, and could result in legal liability.
This means: don't use the content of the site to make derivative works to make money, otherwise we might sue you.
It's mostly straightforward stuff like that. If there's a specific part that you're having trouble with, I'm happy to have a crack at explaining it.
[+] [-] soarfourmore|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcinzm|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fatsdomino001|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Dma54rhs|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mimixco|4 years ago|reply
To handle this, we link to theirs in place of a custom one.
[+] [-] modsmustgo|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] brighton36|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dang|4 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[+] [-] paxys|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fsflover|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beervirus|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] opnitro|4 years ago|reply