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back to article Freelancer.com fined for 'reckless indifference to privacy rights'

Freelancer.com is “exercising our rights to appeal” a finding by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) that it displayed “reckless indifference to the privacy rights of the complainant.” The OAIC decision (PDF) on the matter awarded the complainant AUD$15,000 in general damages and a further AUD$5,000 in …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apparent lack of disregard?

    "aggravated by its apparent lack of disregard for the complainant’s privacy and its own privacy obligations".

    That can't be right surely?

    10 0 Reply
  2. Notas Badoff

    Legalish

    Yes, or sumtin. I looked, and that is actually what they said in section 382 in the PDF. Amazing. When non-legal people pretend to the practice of extracting pounds of flesh, they ought to watch their 'dis'es.

    BTW: "new" -> "knew"

    0 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well, that'll teach them.

    Never put a policy online that doesn't contain enough weasel word to pretty much allow anything you want. There is no shortage of them: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft - examples aplenty.

    6 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Well, that'll teach them.

      "Never put a policy online that doesn't contain enough weasel word to pretty much allow anything you want."

      Or at least to give the impression to someone reading- or about to take legal action- that it lets them do what they want.

      Whether that would actually hold up in court or not doesn't matter if it's enough to dissuade the person from taking it that far in the first place.

      0 0 Reply
  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh good.

    Freelancer failed to register my account a half dozen times and then I gave up. Close escape.

    2 0 Reply
  5. nilfs2
    FAIL

    I made the mistake

    I made the mistake of signing up on Freelancer to look for extra cash on my leisure time, it's impossible to win a project there, it is full of Indian people working for peanuts, can't blame them for trying to make a living, but not worth my time building a website for $20; to make matters worst, now they spam my email daily with useless crap.

    4 0 Reply
    1. ecofeco Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: I made the mistake

      It's the same with their copycats as well. Simply not worth it. Great idea, but went to ruin quickly.

      1 0 Reply
  6. DCLXV

    I also made the mistake of signing up to test the waters with one of these similar sites that got bought by [no doubt] some smarmy venture capitalist and then amalgamated into Upwork.com. I don't think Indians willing to work for less are as much a threat as the people who have done enough crummy Wordpress installs to have most of the process templated. If you can charge $20/hr. for a job that only requires ten minutes of actual effort then it's not so bad.

    On the other hand, if you have experience with LAMP/LEMP installing Yet Another Awful Blog by Joe, why not just launch your own web service? Perhaps another Freelancer clone where the selling point is being able to work anonymously and get paid in Bitcoin...

    If you use that idea, I had it first and am willing to discuss licensing terms over some lunch (your treat)

    3 0 Reply

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