Tell HN: Ashby spams engineers by scraping their emails with no opt-out

[thebiglebrewski]

Hi HN, I thought I'd let you know that "Ashby HQ", some kind of new recruiting software, has a tool to look up emails via 3rd parties that they will not let engineers opt out of.

After getting a lot of recruiting spam over the years, I am always trying to opt out of it. Usually when there's an uptick, some new service like Ashby that lets people spam engineers has started.

Typically these services let people opt out, but after emailing back and forth with support, it seems Ashby "uses third parties" for this data and will not let engineers stop employers from getting their email, even if they don't want to be contacted.

Just putting this out there for any engineer thinking of working for them or who notices an uptick in recruiter spam that can't be stopped. I find this behavior really sad, personally, an email with no way to unsubscribe.

Please upvote if you support data privacy and the right to be forgotten :).

[legitster]

Their privacy policy is pretty well documented: https://www.ashbyhq.com/resources/privacy

Ashby is the tool the companies use to recruit. It doesn't sound like they directly collect recruit data from third parties. But it sounds like their customers may be doing so.

You can reach out to the company spamming you and they should have more data about where your information is coming from.

[thebiglebrewski]

I did that, that's what led me here. They said "I used Ashby's email finder."

[DamonHD]

If those are to personal email addresses, they would be forbidden under GDPR (EU & UK) as not opt in and no right of deletion, ie misuse of personal data.

If they are coming to work (ie non-personal) email addresses then the employers could have some course of action, eg in the UK remove the implied right of access to email servers and then invoke the Computer Misuse Act for unauthorised use of those systems. I have eventually had some effects with variations of the second.

[thebiglebrewski]

This is to a personal email addresses. Yeah, I agree, I think they would at least have to give me a list of the 3rd parties? But I am in the US :(