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Hey there, Alex here. I completely understand where you are coming from.

I'm not an expert on laws, GDPR, when consent is needed, by whom, etc.

This is a side project that just started gaining a little bit of traction, and I'll certainly look into all the above.

However, the emails I add are publicly available, found on the internet. Not from some leaked database.

I also have prices high in order to keep spammers away and have a small handful of customers. I only have about twenty, and they are targeting different kind of startups.


Work email addresses are considered personal data under GDPR

https://www.cognitivelaw.co.uk/gdpr-issues-do-work-emails-co...


However, b2b marking may be allowed under the GDPR. Form your link:

> Recital 47 of the GDPR states that “The processing of personal data for direct marketing purposes may be regarded as carried out for a legitimate interest”. However, if you intend to rely on legitimate interest rather than consent, you will need to apply the following three-part test:

> 1. The purpose test: Are you processing personal data in pursuit of a legitimate interest?

> 2. The necessity test: Is the processing proportionate to achieving your aims?

> 3. The balancing test: Is your legitimate interest overridden by the rights of the person whose data you’re processing?


This is the correct answer for B2B emails in Europe.


> I'm not an expert on laws, GDPR, when consent is needed, by whom, etc.

> This is a side project that just started gaining a little bit of traction, and I'll certainly look into all the above.

You are selling a product without even knowing the legality of doing so?


Never heard of ask for forgiveness than for permission?


I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. If you are, I applaud the subtlety.

For those nodding in agreement, ask yourself whether this line of thinking would hold up in court.


The GP has a point though. You can't operate a hotel without a license (AirBNB), you can't run a taxi business without a license (Uber), you can't keep other people's money like a bank without a license (PayPal). The list goes on...


Isn't this exactly survivorship bias?


Not exactly, but mine was a tongue-in-cheek comment anyway.


Move fast & break things at its best.


A small suggestion then: why not re-apply the same fundamental technologies and techniques, but to targeting public figures who are perhaps deserving of a little more scrutiny and contact than they're getting?

Rather than facilitating cold-calls to startup founders/leaders (which, let's face it, is generally a waste of their time and which they probably don't deserve that kind of punishment), why not expose the emails/contact-info of executives for bad actors in the marketplace, companies that have recently been sued or charged with crimes or civil complaints (by the SEC/FCC/etc.), companies that have had exposes written about them, etc.?

I'm not saying this will be a more profitable service or anything btw; in fact I'm quite certain it will have much less profit opportunity. But maybe this is something you can do to buy back some goodwill, to counterbalance the profit-seeking and cold-call/spam enabling side of this project.


Are you basically advocating facilitating the spamming of a certain section of "morally bad" individuals? I'm not sure this is the kind of advice that will lead to a less controversial business.


Hey everyone, Alex here.

I was caught a bit by surprise to be honest, as I did not post the article myself.

The article is very sloppy and it shows, so sorry for putting you through that! I also left-aligned the text as people requested.

I'm happy that people enjoyed it and can relate :)


GitGardener appears to be for letting job applicants trick employers into thinking that have legit projects on git, while Cyberleads enables spammers to shit into the inboxes of startup execs.

Congrats.


'shit into the inbox'? jesus do you only like emails from your mother?


I don’t like unsolicited commercial emails, so yes, that’s correct, I only email with mom.


> It's a success story.

Haha! That was a good one.


Hey man, it was a success story. For Germany. First their banks are salvaged. Then they get infusion of cheap Greek labor.

It's a win-win.


If that was the case then every company/startup that fails to raise another round would survive on the "better tools" they developed with their previous funding rounds.

But as we know, they die or sell instead.


Sorry, but that is a broken analogy. Wikipedia's revenue model and cost structure is nothing like startup's.


I agree it's not a perfect analogy, Wikipedia's model is even worse. Startups generate revenue as well. Wikipedia is nearly fully dependant on funding.


Wikipedia cannot "sell" their product, that's antithetical to it's purpose and mission. Doctors without Borders is not a failure because they rely on donations for disaster relief rather then profiting from it.


No one called Wikipedia or Doctors without Borders a failure. The article states that relying on donations is risky by nature, let alone when increasing expenses every year.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this, do you think there is no way donations may decline leaving Wikipedia in trouble with hundreds of people on it's pay roll?


The risk is that WMF decides, as the article presents, to sell off rather than downsize if donation revenue drops. Wikipedia itself can be sustained on 1% of the donation revenue the foundation is getting each year, so the only threat to Wikipedia is the foundation itself, not that there won't be enough money to keep it maintained, independent, and unmonetized.


I love the widget!

What is your tech stack?


Thank you!!

Started with Laravel Spark .. so Laravel + Vue.js :)


Creator here. While growing my product, Telemonetize, a service that allows to charge a monthly subscription for access to your Telegram group or channel, I found myself going into the crypto market.

I quickly found out that crypto payments are 'push' payments, meaning that for a user to pay, let's say, $10/mo in cryptocurrency, he/she has to send the payment manually himself/herself every month. There is no universal solution for 'pulling' from a crypto wallet. Any solution that 'pulls' from a customer's wallet is limited and requires your end user to have that specific wallet

I built this API to make your life easier while accepting crypto subscriptions. It's a simple API that notifies your subscribers automatically via email several times before their subscription expires so you don't have to do it manually. In these emails, there will be a link to a checkout page so they can renew their subscription

You will get notified via email and webhooks when users subscribe, renew or don't renew(cancel) their subscription

All you have to do is add an embeddable widget/button to your website

It's built on Ruby on Rails, with plain Javascript and Bootstrap on the front end and it's hosted on Heroku


My stack is Rails on the back end, ruby for the Telegram Bot, Bootstrap and plain javascript on the front end, Stripe for the payment system.


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