Red Ventures has turned very specific advice into very big business

drannex 2021-08-16 20:57:45 +0000 UTC [ - ]

nickreese 2021-08-18 08:48:44 +0000 UTC [ - ]

RedVentures is pretty much the 1000lb gorilla in SEO lead gen. They also have a pretty large patent library and aren't afraid to use it. This includes a patent on zip code search which our last startup was on the receiving end of an infringement claim.[1]

If you are a reporter or investigative journalist I'd encourage you to do some poking around into the business model behind APlaceForMom.com and the FTC action to spin off Caring.com and the overall effect on the nursing home industry.

I can go on a major rant about RV, their moves to rollup the majority of the lead gen industry but due to prior legal interactions with them I'll refrain from painting a target on my back any further than I have.

---

[1] https://patents.google.com/patent/US20140149249A1/

ren_engineer 2021-08-18 15:12:17 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Google should technically blacklist most of their sites, they blatantly link to their own properties to boost the SEO ranking of all their online properties

The fact Google is too lazy to stop a bunch of conglomerates from monopolizing the internet is the most disgusting part

arrosenberg 2021-08-18 15:57:14 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> The fact Google is too lazy to stop a bunch of conglomerates from monopolizing the internet is the most disgusting part

It would make them somewhat hypocritical if they did.

ren_engineer 2021-08-18 17:02:02 +0000 UTC [ - ]

In this case it makes their "product" worse because search quality is bad and only focused on exploiting Google's user. Google has an incentive to remove these companies for their own benefit even if you ignore basic ethics

luckylion 2021-08-18 20:56:13 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Their product is the ad-section above the search results.

NickEubanks 2021-08-18 16:49:59 +0000 UTC [ - ]

+1

edwardofclt 2021-08-18 17:46:59 +0000 UTC [ - ]

RV plays the game that Google created and they do it well. What’s wrong with that? Google doesn’t stop it because that’s how they make ad revenue. And I wouldn’t say monopolizing is the right term… that would imply we ran Google and made sure to make our results #1.

ren_engineer 2021-08-18 18:40:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The entire company is just a giant PBN that is considered too big to fail/deindex.

appleflaxen 2021-08-18 19:06:46 +0000 UTC [ - ]

What is PBN?

Private Business Network?

ren_engineer 2021-08-18 19:43:14 +0000 UTC [ - ]

private blog network, old SEO trick where you have multiple websites that appear separate but are owned by the same person and link back to each other to boost SEO. Google bans the practice but all these huge media companies get away with it. If a small fry did it all their sites would be removed from Google

at their scale, I wouldn't be surprised if they had multiple people on Google Search team bribed. They'd lose billions if they actually got the penalties they deserve

vgeek 2021-08-19 01:38:28 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This comes across as conspiracy theorish, but sadly isn't if you consider Thumbtack/Nest? getting penalties & reversals within a week. Maybe it was a coincidence that they had GV investments? When a non-affiliated site gets penalized, Jon Mueller and Gary Illyes say "we can't 100% explain the algorithm's ranking decisions. Just publish more quality content", but when a GV company gets hit, Google acts quickly in rectifying the penalty.

The same for eBay's massive organic penalty after they published a case study showing that pausing their paid ads didn't hurt their business.

loceng 2021-08-18 20:36:18 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Bribes most likely tied to stock, perhaps in part part "vesting" only at future date.

minikites 2021-08-18 18:12:46 +0000 UTC [ - ]

>stop a bunch of conglomerates from monopolizing the internet

Would Google make more money if they did this?

vgeek 2021-08-18 14:27:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This is what is sad. During that time frame, BroadbandNow was 100% better (listing all providers vs just paying) than AllConnect. I didn't really know how large RV was until discovering their acquisition of Imagitas from the USPS, so they both have their tentacles everywhere & would rather litigate than innovate.

I've seen their job listings and looked them up from the employment side before, and they seem to have high turnover & somewhat cult-like/exploitative behaviors.

dgb23 2021-08-18 11:17:51 +0000 UTC [ - ]

How can this be a patent? It’s as ridiculous as the one click buy. Don’t your legislators see how these things are not at all useful and are only used to bully? How they only create useless overhead? How it prevents progress and incremental innovation? How it induces fear into small businesses and creates perverse incentives for large ones?

Akronymus 2021-08-18 13:25:55 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I tried multiple times to understand what it is actually saying.

But between the vagueness and buzzwords I didn't get it at all.

dmix 2021-08-18 18:07:28 +0000 UTC [ - ]

A good example of their SEO content generation:

https://www.aplaceformom.com/sitemap

This websites also used the same website design:

https://www.allconnect.com/internet/cheap

This one is slightly different but same leadgen business model:

https://www.mymove.com/

Also with a coupon directory with affiliate links: https://www.mymove.com/coupons/electronics/

Couldn’t find any obvious cross links between properties. But definitely giant Google keyword engines with a leadgen business model.

mitchellst 2021-08-18 18:16:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

RV employee here, so take this as you will but... this comment is baffling. RV does not own or operate A Place for Mom. One of the private equity firms that owns a stake in RV also has a stake in A Place for Mom. Not the strongest connection in the world. RV bought Bankrate, Inc in 2017 (the acquisition through which I joined RV, in another division) which owned Caring.com. Because of the investor connection, RV never integrated Caring and sold it off immediately. So, maybe the senior care industry has some awful practices. But... RV does not do business in that industry. This is really what you hold against us?

dmix 2021-08-18 18:34:28 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This was the FTC complaint that led to the sale of Caring.com https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2018/04/ftc-a...

Apparently APlaceForMom was #1 in the market and Caring.com was #2 and the FTC feared that having the same stockholders owning majority stakes in both companies would lead to data sharing and essentially be market consolidation.

So RV sold off their $1.4B investment.

elefanten 2021-08-18 18:53:36 +0000 UTC [ - ]

You ignored the monopolist patent troll stuff and the part where the poster's company was sued by RV for zip code search, but yeah good summary.

athrowaway3z 2021-08-18 10:00:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I remember reading some piece of policy document that stated offhandedly in its introduction as a matter of fact something like "Patents allow us to foster innovation and are a benefit to society".

I can only imagine that businesses are going to setup somewhere outside the US. Not for tax reasons, but simply to avoid the exposure to the minefield of patent.

skrebbel 2021-08-18 15:12:29 +0000 UTC [ - ]

If you do business in the US, a US court can compel you to stop doing so, even if you're not there.

staticautomatic 2021-08-18 16:23:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Except that these days they almost never do that.

yccs27 2021-08-18 21:04:26 +0000 UTC [ - ]

With patent claims up to billions of dollars, "they likely won't enforce it" isn't good enough for most serious companies.

staticautomatic 2021-08-18 22:02:22 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I’m not talking about enforcing an injunction. I’m talking about granting one.

rexreed 2021-08-18 12:27:17 +0000 UTC [ - ]

When I click on the link above it says that the current patent status is "Abandoned"?

nickreese 2021-08-18 13:23:39 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I may have linked to the wrong one. They have 2 active owned via AllConnect patented by Glenn Goad. One is zip code availability lookup/search and the other is address level search for availability of services. They also have a 3rd more aggressive one that the patent examiner gave them headaches over and they ultimately abandoned.

—-

We were sued in 2018. My knowledge of their patents is from then. They may have abandoned some since then.

thesausageking 2021-08-18 14:29:30 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It sounds like it might be this one: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8433617B2/en

It's active and I see lawsuits were filed around it in 2018.

rexreed 2021-08-18 14:44:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Thanks! That looks like the one. How do these patents make it through the "novel, unique, and non-obvious" evaluation process by examiners?

thesausageking 2021-08-18 15:34:17 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Examiners are overworked and under-resourced, and the current system gives too much latitude to filers, especially if you have resources to do many filings with many rounds of back and forth with the examiners.

I believe they cause more harm than good and we should just get rid of software patents. At most, they should be replaced with IP protection that's similar to software innovation timescales (ie, 1-2 years, not 20 years).

loceng 2021-08-18 15:01:11 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Regulatory capture and incompetence, par for course of industrial complexes - where lawyers make more profit via the most successfully, doing whatever dark patterns to earn more profit/extract more from society, then having more $ to pay lawyers, and it's also initially funded by VC industrial complex.

It's ultimately why I believe control mechanisms must be abandoned, no patents (or if allowed, perhaps only for 3-5 years to give a head start but longer than that is clearly harmful and costly to society and innovation/competition).

javiramos 2021-08-18 12:37:59 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It seems like the cited patent was an application that was eventually abandoned. The application didn't hold very well during examination.

TheMagicHorsey 2021-08-18 13:41:41 +0000 UTC [ - ]

In case any engineer reading the linked patent is confused about what the patent is saying ... that is a feature of the patent ... not a bug.

Patents are written to be vague. They don't need to teach anything. They just need to look "sophisticated" so a jury of yokels in rural Texas thinks that it's very "smart". Then you get an award of Billions of dollars for something you cook up on a whiteboard over lunch with your lawyer.

After seeing the breakneck pace of innovation in Shanghai and Shenzhen I'm convinced that a free for all is a better state for an economy then what we have in California with patents. Patents create a system where you need to get a thousand permissions from people ... spend millions on lawyers ... all for what? All because we are worried that someone somewhere might have done the thing you are trying to do first. I say so what? Yes its sad if someone makes something and they don't get paid for it because everyone else does the same thing. But is that a bigger tragedy then what we have now where trolls shut down whole industries and approaches? Where lawyers live parasitically on the backs of engineers, doing nothing but causing friction in the system and adding no value.

I know formerly good engineers that no longer do engineering. They just spit out endless amounts of bullshit papers for lawyers to turn into patents, which will then be used to harass those of us that are actually trying to build useful products.

A society that incentivizes parasitism instead of productive work will end up falling behind a society that incentivizes useful work.

Between the policies of the Fed that have pushed so many smart people into unproductive speculative jobs (like flipping houses) and stupid laws like software patents, I've become very bearish about America's future prospects after visiting China. Everyone in China actually seems to be working at a breakneck pace making useful stuff. Everyone in America seems to just have their hand in someone else's pocket, or they are buying some asset in the hope they can sell it for more tomorrow.

How can we continue to make progress like this? This is so insane.

josaka 2021-08-18 13:49:18 +0000 UTC [ - ]

That's not a patent. It's a published application, which was abandoned after being rejected by the USPTO. This can be verified on the USPTO's public PAIR system.

The broader point about yokels from rural TX is less true than it used to be. Post 2012, as a practical matter, to assert a patent, you have to survive an IPR challenge, where a group of more experienced technical staff at the USPTO decide whether the invalidate your patent in an adversarial proceeding.

josaka 2021-08-18 13:52:48 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I should add that the abandoned patent application is a continuation-in-part of two issued patents, if folks are curious: 8,433,617 and 8,346,624, both of which issued before the bar for software patents was raised (and blurred, to mix metaphors) in 2014 by the Supreme Court in Alice v. CLS Bank. Software patents issued before that case tend to not fare well under the current case law and are often thrown out in the first months of a suit (with a few exceptions in certain fora).

lotsofpulp 2021-08-18 16:08:47 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The yokels from rural TX problem got somewhat fixed in May 2017:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TC_Heartland_LLC_v._Kraft_Food...

walshemj 2021-08-18 19:01:23 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I would have thought that there would be prior art on that (zip / post code lookup) from US Postal Service or the GPO

steve76 2021-08-18 14:59:55 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Call the number for APlaceForMom.com.

RING RING

RING RING RING

...

"Fruit cellar!"

rancar2 2021-08-18 12:04:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Nick, I’m very sorry to hear of your troubles. I’d love to hear more about what our industry can do to shift the tide back towards serving those in need of care better. My mission is to maximize wellbeing, and it’s appears you are aligned with this perspective.

If you are an investigative journalist or class action lawyer, please feel free to reach out to me. I’m easy to find.

thesausageking 2021-08-18 14:24:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I appreciate you responding to this thread, but "My mission is to maximize wellbeing, and it’s appears you are aligned with this perspective" is a really fake, BS response.

If you want to engage with the HN community, talk about why you own and have prosecuted what seem like obvious patents. It was filed in 2009, when similar services were all over the web.

RVSux 2021-08-18 13:26:24 +0000 UTC [ - ]

RV is an incredibly shitty company. I doubt this company will last. The middle management there sucks and the company has no vision beyond "lets just do what other sites are doing." Their entire business model is about not giving a shit about the consumer and just ramming and hiding bullshit deals down their throats.

Talent wise, I have never worked with a group of assholes as delusional as the people who work there. Their technology sucks, and the people who are implementing are is extremely fucking dumb. They get distracted by shiny new technology all the time. This lead to all of their crap being this unmaintainable mess of crap powered by wordpress.

And if you tried to make things better, everyone there had the biggest egos you can imagine so any criticisms were seen as an attack on their character. One time there was this code that was super insecure with SQL injections all over the place and remote code execution vulnerabilities. When this was pointed out, the director who wrote that code 20 years ago tried to get someone fired. No quite a place I would trust for all of my personal information btw.

If you think you are the best, this place is for you. Shitty technology and shitty products that leave plenty of room to just coast with no real challenge. But if you are actually smart and want to work with real smart people, this place is not the place. One of the worst places I worked at in my career.

kowlo 2021-08-18 14:10:47 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Would it be fair to say that you're not a fan of Red Ventures then?

Your review prompted me to check them out on glassdoor, https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Red-Ventures-Reviews-E14..., and it doesn't seem too bad. Is glassdoor not a reliable source anymore?

briffle 2021-08-18 14:48:42 +0000 UTC [ - ]

At a previous employer, every time there was an 'honest' review from someone (something I could confirm happened, and usually recognized who it was), it would quickly be drowned out by 5-10 fake reviews that were somehow placed there by HR and their recruiting team. I'm not sure if they paid people to leave fake ones, or if they used some sort of service.

I have given up on using glassdoor, I put its ratings somewhere between Amazon and Ebay Seller ratings

RVSux 2021-08-18 14:23:12 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I don't work there anymore. I left that company for a literal 100% pay raise, their pay sucks that bad. I wouldn't really pay attention to the glassdoor, though the negative reviews are very close to my experience there. Lack of direction and poor management. Their technology honestly sucks. Its an insanely political place where if you don't toe the company line and say everything is peachy, they force you out. Like even pointing out serious weaknesses in applications or the absurdity of a project is seen as being a problem employee.

There aren't very many smart engineers working there honestly. One of the good things there is that they put junior engineers in charge of projects, which lets them grow faster than most places, but the problem is that they put a bunch of junior engineers in charge of projects so there is noone who really understands software engineering and could actually mentor others. Like if a senior engineering resume came to me from RV, I would treat it as a Junior engineer.

So fine place to start your career, terrible place to actually learn how to build good software.

RVSux 2021-08-18 16:36:16 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I just realized that you shared the UK link for glassdoor. Honestly, I can't speak for the UK office, they seemed fine. I worked out of their LA office, so maybe your millage may vary?

cameron_b 2021-08-18 16:59:39 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I apologize for any amount I may have contributed to your negative perception of RV. I don't mean to overly defend the company I don't work for anymore, but I did respect many individuals with whom I was able to work. Unfortunately they are under the Jeffrey Hammerbacher curve in their output.

shishy 2021-08-18 14:23:15 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I don't think glassdoor was ever reliable. Many of my previous employers would ask employees to write favorable things on there.

heavyset_go 2021-08-18 19:34:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Is glassdoor not a reliable source anymore?

No, the only signal in their sea of noise are the negative reviews.

soggybutter 2021-08-18 20:17:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

How long ago did you work at RV? I was there after 2016 and they had some really solid tech and incredibly bright engineers. Sure, there were some ass-hats and politics (show me a company where there isn't), but I'd rank it pretty highly among the companies I've worked for.

randallsquared 2021-08-18 22:28:11 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Not the GP, but I worked there (in SC) in 2015, and agree with you that some of their engineers were pretty great. Some not, but that's the case most places, I imagine.

In any case, I can see why some people would have had a bad reaction to various aspects of the place -- I myself left after only 10 months, repaying my relocation bonus to go work at a healthcare startup.

drstewart 2021-08-18 21:16:46 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This certainly seems like an even keeled and objective review

throwawayrv 2021-08-18 13:19:46 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I used to work for Red Ventures as an engineer. It was a very poorly run technical company with dubious business practices. I won't into details, but I would encourage any developers to look elsewhere if possible.

jtoliver 2021-08-18 14:20:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I interviewed at RV years ago for a backend position. During the interview I was told they didn't think I was sure if I wanted to work backend, frontend, or devops (I'm pretty sure devops wasn't the popular term back then...just can't remember what it was). They couldn't give me an explanation to why they thought that. Only thing I could think of is the different tech/prev positions I had on my resume. I guess I would of had more luck now since companies like full stack engineers(I don't know if that is still the trend). Also I too left the interview having no clue what they did. Glad I didn't get the position since I've know so many engineers complain about the place. Also I ended up finding a great job and coming up on my 10th year anniversary.

beckler 2021-08-16 21:39:41 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I have heard nothing but horror stories from those who worked at RV.

kuyan 2021-08-18 08:43:12 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Wow, no kidding. Never heard of them before but the sentiment on /r/Charlotte is pretty visceral.

https://www.google.com/search?q=red+ventures+site%3Areddit.c...

soggybutter 2021-08-18 11:39:30 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Not that it really makes it any better, but the engineering/tech side is almost completely divorced from the sales side when it comes to work life balance and culture. Most of the complaints I see across the internet come from folks who worked in the sales centers which, even internally, I've heard was a pretty awful environment if you weren't in the top 10%. New agents in particular were burned through quickly as they really only had the worst shifts to pick from, so climbing the ladder was a long and arduous journey.

I worked there for a couple of years and it was honestly a great experience. I'm sure they've "grown up" some more at this point, but at the time it was all the fun, freedom, and flexibility of working at a startup with the security of a company that was essentially too big to fail.

RVSux 2021-08-18 13:37:34 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Nah dude, their tech side sucks too. Its, too Ego driven. I have never worked with managers as incompetent as I did there.

soggybutter 2021-08-18 20:23:45 +0000 UTC [ - ]

There were a lot of areas, particularly with the more legacy systems, that were super painful to work with. But a lot of the newer, greenfield development was good stuff built on good technologies. I'm not sure how you could have this opinion unless you: A) Happen to hate all of the technologies chosen B) Only had the chance to work in the older, shittier systems.

cameron_b 2021-08-18 13:11:05 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I would echo that the sentiment is mostly for sales roles. With the sheer volume of employee history and churn represented by the sales roles ( phone agents, mostly ) it far outweighs the rest.

To their credit, RV is really an opportunity company. They'll give anyone who can smile on the phone a shot at learning sales. Some folks are awesome at it and could out-earn some early tier tech roles in their compensation for closing sales. And the "creepy" profiling work that was done on lead gen would basically fit shopping style to an agent who had been shown to be able to close similar shopping patterns. I worked on the tech side and wasn't enamored by the revenue streams, but if someone was shopping for an 'x' RV sure made it easier to buy it. That was their thing. They didn't do outbound calling unless you called in and asked to talk another time.

The tech side was very exciting. I met very skilled folks from all sorts of disciplines and people pretty much worked shoulder to shoulder, which I've grown to appreciate a lot since working elsewhere.

drstewart 2021-08-18 08:45:27 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The sentiment on reddit for everything is visceral. Very bitter place.

IggleSniggle 2021-08-18 13:20:00 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It really depends on the subreddit.

tvanantwerp 2021-08-18 08:45:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Oof. Makes me glad my interviews with them didn't go very far.

mgkimsal 2021-08-18 12:05:51 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I did tech training years ago, and the company I contracted for had me interview with some of their team to discuss customized on-site training. I think I got the call because I was one of the closest people to their SC office, and would have been able to do multiple on-site weeks without much issue.

But... someone on the call didn't like my description of classes (like object/class stuff), from what I remember - disagreed with both some of the material and some of what I'd said about classes. FWIR, he didn't like them at all, and thought classes were "too much overhead" or something along those lines. I'd indicated that we could customize the material to focus on whatever they wanted to focus on. They were onboarding something like... 10-15 developers every other week, and this would have been a "crash course"-style "everyone learn the same thing to get started" - a combination of "our internal processes" but also "industry standard stuff" from an outside company.

We didn't get the gig, and I think they just settled on "in house only", IIRC. This was probably... 2009? Knowing they were adding ~20 developers per month was already an indication they were growing organically pretty fast (imo).

dw-im-here 2021-08-18 08:34:05 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I got some pretty bad vibes from reading about their business model. We don't need more of this adtech shit

tjfl 2021-08-18 08:36:42 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yeah, I'm never calling a toll free number again.

> For instance, they purchased more than a million toll-free phone numbers, and each visitor to their marketing website was shown a different one. So when prospective customers called, Red Ventures knew exactly what they had been looking at on the site, which gave the agents what they needed to make personalized sales pitches. This was a pretty high-tech form of digital surveillance in those more innocent times.

combyn8tor 2021-08-18 08:46:22 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Ethics aside, that is pretty clever.

rambambram 2021-08-18 09:18:32 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Cleverness aside, that's pretty unethical.

redeux 2021-08-18 10:30:39 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Why is this unethical? If you go into a shop, can’t the shop keeper see what you’re looking at and talk to you about that item specifically? Do shops not have surveillance cameras that record your every moment?

I start to see ethical problems when they start selling or sharing the personalized data they collect with other parties, or start tracking you when you’re not on their site.

rambambram 2021-08-18 13:51:24 +0000 UTC [ - ]

See harry8's reply. But my main reason for nipping this in the bud, is a trend I see wherein shitty behavior somehow becomes okay because it looks clever, as in: hey, I didn't think about that. It's not clever, it's deceptive, rat-like, low behavior. That's something else than clever, in my book. And you probably never thought of it because you're a human being, who doesn't regularly come up with ways to f*ck people over.

skeeter2020 2021-08-18 13:32:30 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Lots of things become unethical at scale.

BrianOnHN 2021-08-18 10:41:03 +0000 UTC [ - ]

They are the third party...

jstummbillig 2021-08-18 10:24:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

How so? Most people wouldn't claim it's "unethical" to be addressed by a clerc in context of what they looked at in a store - only in that case you are actually required to interact.

harry8 2021-08-18 11:12:44 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Oh do come the hell on.

I know what I look like in a shop. I know what the clerk knows about me.

I know what the clerk can only guess about me from my appearance.

This is the clerk picking your damn pocket to find examine the contents of your wallet before returning it without your knowledge. You didn't agree to it. You now don't know what they know - but - and this is the real kicker - you probably think you do.

Nobody ever gave informed consent for of this surveillance which has been a massive bait and switch. It does /not/ map to going into a store and having the clerk watch which product you look at before assisting you.

jstummbillig 2021-08-18 15:04:14 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> I know what I look like in a shop. I know what the clerk knows about me.

Just be clear, we are still exactly talking about a website owner tracking what somebody looked at and passing said information on by utilizing unique phone numbers in case they call? Because I can't help but feel like we escalated this thing a notch to vent on pent-up feelings about privacy in general (which we might actually agree on, but yeah, different scope)

harry8 2021-08-18 15:36:17 +0000 UTC [ - ]

And you're completely aware of that and you know what the person selling to you knows about your actions just like you do in a shop?

No? Ok then. It's one example of many of secret and deceptive surveillance. If you want to be angrier about worse ones please feel free...

As an aside, there have been plenty of things from which we defend ourselves from salesmen. Both ethical and not dating from well before Berners-Lee thought "I can use markup to make a documentation system with this new-fangled tcp/ip thing on unix machines right here at CERN!" Some of us are naturally better equipped to defend against all the techniques than others. Arming con-people grifting from the gullible with additional personal information to use as secret ammunition along side psychological manipulation seems wrong to me. The continuum goes all the way from "no such thing as a bad sale" through all selling is wrong. That's where I sit on that continuum. YMMV.

jstummbillig 2021-08-18 16:15:41 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Is me being completely aware of something the linchpin around which we are going to judge if somebody is interacting ethically with me? Because I can see how that would complicate things. Ethically speaking.

Also I am 100% certain I am not completely aware of what a clerk knows about my actions when I enter their shop. Unless I pessimistically assume "potentially everything", including my exact identity because I live around there somewhere.

heavyset_go 2021-08-18 19:43:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Manipulation and lies typically are clever, otherwise people wouldn't fall for them.

cgarvis 2021-08-18 11:43:02 +0000 UTC [ - ]

They own 5% of all phone numbers in order to pull this off.

darrenf 2021-08-18 09:20:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

That the numbers were toll free is entirely unrelated to the surveillance aspect.

There are companies who provide regular local area numbers, with all kinds of analytics (number of answered calls, average length of time to answer, etc) plus recordings and lots more.

See https://www.iovox.co.uk/solutions/advanced-call-tracking for just one example.

dredmorbius 2021-08-18 09:49:33 +0000 UTC [ - ]

WATS lines (toll-free service numbers) provide additional caller information above and beyond a standard toll line, on the premise that it's the callee who's paying for the call.

This has been a privacy concern for decades.

Services have changed substantially and I'm no longer current on information (WATS itself has been retired), but no, a toll-free call is not the same as a standard POTS / direct-dialed toll number, AFAIU.

That's above and beyond the per-user or per-source tracking accomplished here.

Note that similar schemes can be run via postal mail through specific P.O. Box or department routing addresses.

1123581321 2021-08-18 09:07:49 +0000 UTC [ - ]

They did that years ago. These days Google has a product that can dynamically insert a local area code number to link your call to web behavior. Presumably RV and others can do it too, and if it’s integrated server-side it can’t be blocked.

ausbah 2021-08-18 12:29:12 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I interned at RV this post summer. On the tech side of things, I thought it was by far the best workplace culture out of the 3 places I've interned at. Super supportive team and coworkers, good tech stacks, very feedback oriented, etc.

Funnily enough I didn't really know what they did either until reading this article, shows how separate tech is from many products

burkaman 2021-08-18 14:52:59 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Can I ask why you were willing to work for an organization without understanding what they did? I don't really mean to single you out, I don't think this is an uncommon attitude, but isn't this the most basic information you need to get before you work for someone? What if they made weapons or espionage tools or something and sold them to the highest bidder? I'm sure even arms dealers have software teams working on innocuous-seeming internal tools.

If you aren't in a position to be picky about what job you take I understand, but I didn't get that sense from your comment.

ausbah 2021-08-18 19:51:24 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I had a general understanding of the company before interning there, just not to nearly the same depth as the article explained it because it was never necessary for my job

the-stephen 2021-08-19 00:39:29 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Bruh wtf are you on about???

quacked 2021-08-18 13:08:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I'm not necessarily anti-capitalist, but it's so frustrating that a huge percentage of the best talent, compensation, and tech stacks goes to industries that aren't doing anything actually useful (finance, fintech, adtech)*. There are so many organizations in farming, space travel, healthcare, etc. that would be very well served with receiving the best talent and having the best tech stacks/workplace culture, but when the result of a business model is "acquire a huge pile of money" (finance, fintech, adtech), you'll end up with the biggest pile of money with which to find the best and pay better.

runako 2021-08-18 13:22:30 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> farming, space travel, healthcare, etc.

To be fair, there are huge piles of money in 2/3 of these as well. There is obviously the perception that tech labor cannot bring much value to these industries. (Or there are externalities: techies will work for less money if you let them work on space travel.)

quacked 2021-08-18 14:41:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It's not just that tech can't bring much value to these industries, it's that the legacy players in the industries are openly resistant to innovation via tech. (They say they're not, but the best engineers often leave big corporations due to the stifling bureaucracies and the insane management practices.)

At the last large organization I worked for, I spent two years trying to convince managers responsible for a critical-path item database to upgrade their tech stack. They had me work on tons of downstream problems, every single one of which was a direct consequence of "the data in the database is incorrect". They refused to fix their tech stack, pay more for good programmers, change their approach to DB management, etc., so I left.

pinkybanana 2021-08-18 13:42:34 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> (Or there are externalities: techies will work for less money if you let them work on space travel.)

I guess the salaries are about the same in companies like SpaceX etc, but I would guess that working hours etc are not. Some engineer working for a bank will probably demand quite relaxed hours, negotiate low pressure tasks and have some holiday time with family, while with the same salary guy working for SpaceX will be busting his ass off and working weekends multiple times an year.

quacked 2021-08-18 14:35:08 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The engineers I know working for banks vs. those working for SpaceX confirm your thoughts; however, there are plenty of engineers working insane hours for fintech, finance, or even engineers-turned-financiers.

The problem is- let's say you're a brilliant genius who's willing to work 80 hours per week doing very difficult tasks. You can make $130-150k net working for space travel, or engineering traffic lights, or you can do similar very complex work for $200-800k in finance. They're hoovering up the smartest, most competitive people because the rewards are the most outsized.

From "Max Dama on Automated Trading" [1]:

> Quantitative trading is the job of programming computers to trade. It is the best job out of undergraduate - you commonly make $100k base salary, plus a bonus which is often larger, the hours are flexible as long as you produce, there is no dress code, the work is extremely fascinating, fast paced, and uses the most advanced technology, and your performance is evaluated objectively. Quant trading combines programming and trading. Programming is the fastest way to take an idea and turn it into reality (compare it to writing a book, publishing, etc or to architecting a building, getting zoning permits, doing construction, etc). Trading is the most direct approach to making money (compare it with starting the next facebook, programming, hiring, advertising, etc or to creating a retail chain, hiring, waiting for money to flow in to reinvest, etc. Combining programming and trading, you have the most direct path from an idea in your brain to cash.

[1] = http://isomorphisms.sdf.org/maxdama.pdf

pinkybanana 2021-08-18 13:40:20 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> that aren't doing anything actually useful (finance, fintech, adtech)*.

Cut that crap. Most of the companies in these spaces are value-adding services and products. It is annoying that this kind of thinking is prevalent "If I don't understand how it generates value, it must be useless."

dgb23 2021-08-18 16:12:15 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Not everyone buys into the ideology that equates monetary success with value. For a rational definition of what adding value means to all involved parties, they sometimes correlate and sometimes don't.

I'm personally fascinated by both financial and marketing strategy, it touches on interesting aspects of many dimensions, from mathematics to psychology and much more. And those fields do serve a purpose in an ever changing and evolving complex economy. But is that purpose really that "valuable"?

I and many others are jaded, because their incentives don't align with progress towards solving the big, important problems. They play their self-perpetuating games while putting on blinders.

All this time, energy, brainpower, centuries of stacked education and research only to manipulate people into constantly buying more stuff. Growth for the sake of growth, piles and mountains of concentrated wealth and power, while people die and suffer and are moved like pawns in a game that nobody signed up for.

Nature is furiously shaking and cooking our planet, while gigantic poisonous gas clouds are leaking from its pores. Our forests, insects, fish and fungi die in masses. Our springs dry up and our seas are covered in trash and poison.

Meanwhile our smartest and most fortunate are building gigantic machines and crunch data so they can "add value" covered by a smoke of ideology mixed with pretend skepticism to keep the gears turning.

There is no money in planting trees for the next generations and in facing the hardest challenges that our societies and nature pose, but I'd wager that this would be "value-adding".

quacked 2021-08-18 16:46:12 +0000 UTC [ - ]

That's a good way of putting it. I think that some tech-competitive or modern-conservative people are turned off by the eco-friendly prose you wrote there, but there is simply no denying it- there is trash everywhere and species are dying off within lifetimes. I just watched Jiro Dreams of Sushi and even he remembers when the fish were higher quality and quantity at the market. Unfortunately, there is no money in letting unfished tuna schools run amok, there's no money in restoring the Great Barrier Reef, there's no money in not flying to Hawaii for vacation.

And those are just the flashy ones- there's no money in wild birds, bugs, waterways, air quality, plants, nature.

Do people value the wild and getting through each day in a pure, healthy environment, or do they value efficiency for the sake of itself?

dgb23 2021-08-18 18:13:11 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It's also a type of fake efficiency. The vegetables we grow have less nutrition in them, the technology is not built to last, products get thrown in the trash without being used and people are drained by their work instead of satisfied. We're doing something wrong, I don't know the solution but ideology seems to be clouding us from seeing the problems in the first place.

drstewart 2021-08-18 21:20:14 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yeah? And how many trees do you plant as a web developer for small businesses? How many fungi have your enthusiastic Clojure scripts saved?

quacked 2021-08-19 01:59:11 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Dunno if you're talking to me or a child commenter, but my career has nothing to do with what I do on the side. I work in tech so I can pile enough cash to convince banks to give me land and doctors to give me surgery. If the U.S. enacted some sort of schema that allowed me to get land and healthcare without providing for banking shareholder's portfolios I'd quit tomorrow, raise dairy cattle, grow produce, or I'd just stand up buildings and clean the side of freeways. If I owned my own time I'd do nothing but fix broken things in the world, and as soon as I've got mine and can quit engineering that's just what I'll do. How many believers in better society have you swayed with snarky comments?

dgb23 2021-08-19 06:20:11 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I’m not excluding myself from this and am working towards it.

colinmhayes 2021-08-18 14:17:27 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I've worked at adtech companies. They were not providing people with any value. The entire business model is built on manipulation and psychological trickery.

pessimizer 2021-08-18 19:06:18 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Murder generates value for murderers; the question is how much value it generates for society.

kowlo 2021-08-18 14:12:40 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Maybe it has more to do with the commenter's opinion of what "value" actually is?

quacked 2021-08-18 14:16:12 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Nonsense. Our definitions of "value" are different. For instance, you likely would only ever work for money, or wish to live in a society that uses financial allocation to determine labor and resourcing. Personally, I do not find "money" to actually be useful except inasmuch to convince people to do actual value-producing activities. You don't need currency to keep the lights on, but right now you need currency to convince anyone to do the actual valuable work to keep the lights on.

I understand how the industries produce "value". I, however, do not find the "value" they produce to be overall beneficial to humanity. Furthermore, even if I accept the utility of currency, it is impossible to deny that these industries have grown into a parasitic nightmare sucking the world dry in the pursuit of ever-higher piles of cash.

taurusnoises 2021-08-18 12:35:46 +0000 UTC [ - ]

What jumped out at me (again with these business models) was this big tech swing toward the "company store" model:

"the company’s South Carolina headquarters, a 180-acre campus with a cluster of modern buildings, a fire pit, a six-lane bowling alley, spin room, pickle ball courts and 264 residences for employees who choose to live where they work."

mitchellst 2021-08-18 18:09:00 +0000 UTC [ - ]

"Company store" vibes aside, it's a really practical way to graduate from college and relocate to your first job without a cash / debt crunch. Also, I'm an RV employee who works in our Austin office, and having visited our Charlotte HQ, it's pretty inconveniently located and far away from things. Seems like there aren't many great apartment options available nearby. We know how it looks and we joke about it sometimes, too. But really, it's practical and lowers the barrier to entry for people into their first job, so I actually think it's pretty cool.

alistairSH 2021-08-18 12:50:00 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yeah, that sounds over the top, even compared to the benefits at some FAANG campuses.

Personally, I'd much rather work in an urban/dense-suburban setting, where I can pick from multiple fitness facilities, housing options, etc.

My current office has a "free" fitness room and a for-profit (consumer pays) cafe. Both are shared by multiple tenants in the building. Anything beyond that really starts to feel company-store and a bit dystopian.

shapefrog 2021-08-18 08:41:30 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This is some solid client journalism.

cameron_b 2021-08-18 13:17:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yea the "Why" here is murky.

chrischen 2021-08-18 09:28:52 +0000 UTC [ - ]

“ More troublingly, some reporters at The Points Guy, which also covers the travel industry in general (it has been a comprehensive source for information on where vaccinated Americans can travel), have complained that the new owners have eroded the already rickety wall between the site’s service journalism and the credit card sales that fund it.

Red Ventures is “all about profit maximization,” said JT Genter, who left the site more than a year ago. He and other Points Guy writers said they hadn’t been pushed to publish stories they found dubious — indeed, the site has occasionally offered carefully critical coverage of Chase and American Express, its dominant business partners.”

Well there goes that resource for me.

halo18 2021-08-18 16:08:32 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Ever credit card affiliate is kind of a bad resource, card issuer compliance makes sure of this, even if the site tries to maintain ethics as a publisher.

It's fairly standard practice that issuers will remove some cards from the affiliate channel (Chase Slate was the prime example of this last I was active in the space.) Once a card is out of the channel, a publisher may need to scrub all mentions of that card off their site completely to stay compliant.

So in my last hands on example - even through the Chase Slate was arguably one of the best balance transfer card options at the time, we literally had to pretend like it didn't exist, or risk all other commissions from other active Chase cards.

There's no way to actually be honest and stay within their terms at the same time - all language is reviewed and picked apart by lawyers, which is why you'll see the same exact 'marketing bullets' across cc review sites. (Amex was the worst - can't say 'grocery store', have to say "US supermarket" type nonsense.)

lotsofpulp 2021-08-18 12:20:54 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> Well there goes that resource for me.

I assume almost all information outside of forums with high barriers to entry are being gamed by marketing, and I assume as days go on, more and more forums will succumb.

The rapid access to high signal to noise ratio information was nice while it lasted.

cik 2021-08-18 13:14:59 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Why just that one? The thing is the vast (vast, vast) majority of blogs are all about profit maximization. I view reading any of this rubbish as simply advertainment and refrain from it. At least they're honest about it. Hell the New York Times engages in this and pretends it's just a newpaper - it's called the Best Seller list.

chrischen 2021-08-18 19:26:18 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It was an ex-employee who said those things so “they” being honest about it is a little generous.

rootsudo 2021-08-18 13:19:04 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Same, yeah, did not know TPG was sold out, and I should've been suspicious when I kept seeing it on the side of Delta Planes.

Damn that branding is strong, I need to verify ownership and how authoritative writing works on these blogs.

halo18 2021-08-18 15:53:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

TPG was sold out to bankrate first in 2012. Then all of bankrate was sold to RV five years later.

yccs27 2021-08-18 08:52:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

We already have enough fake "product comparison" websites, but I guess trade magazines now also have to peddle the crap from the highest bidder.

jon-wood 2021-08-18 12:49:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Trade magazines have always peddled crap from the highest bidder, that’s how they stay in business. Winners of their annual awards are at least partially picked based on willingness to pay a substantial fee.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2021-08-18 09:19:55 +0000 UTC [ - ]

If I am not mistaken they own Metacritic.

deergomoo 2021-08-18 11:59:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yeah, last year they bought all the CNET group stuff, which included all the CBS Interactive gaming stuff—Metacritic, Gamespot, GameFAQs, Giant Bomb etc.

dmitriid 2021-08-18 08:51:37 +0000 UTC [ - ]

So. I read the entire article and still have no idea what Red Ventures does.

I do know that I was sold Mr. Elias as modern-day Mr. Rogers for all the praise lavished on him.

heymijo 2021-08-18 13:33:16 +0000 UTC [ - ]

> I was sold Mr. Elias as modern-day Mr. Rogers for all the praise lavished on him.

Saint in the streets, abusive asshole in the office.

I too once saw him as the guy with worldly wisdom gained when his plane (Sully Sullenberger flight) crashed into the Hudson. The guy with a number of noble sounding nonprofits like Road to Hire.

It's tiring coming across two-faced people like this and the erosion of trust they cause in taking anyone at face value.

shapefrog 2021-08-18 14:36:44 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Ahh that is him? I remember hearing him on a podcast at some point and thinking 'here is a guy who is not a twat'.

Disclaimer: I have been wrong before and will be wrong again.

weird-eye-issue 2021-08-18 09:15:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

They build and acquire websites that make money through ads and affiliate commissions. I have a digital media startup so it was more clear to me

dmitriid 2021-08-18 10:26:17 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Thank you for clarification!

cgarvis 2021-08-18 11:47:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Started out as a DirectTV reseller!

space_rock 2021-08-18 12:57:22 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Patient trolls that buy ads in the nytimes? Know nothing about them but that's my guess

colinmhayes 2021-08-18 14:19:45 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This article was pretty critical, not sure why you're saying they paid for it.

2021-08-18 12:41:14 +0000 UTC [ - ]

edwardofclt 2021-08-18 17:44:43 +0000 UTC [ - ]

As someone who left RV and came back, the negativity being spread because we found a niche and can play the game that Google has designed is hilarious.

RV is a great company to work for. Like any organization, there are bad managers. Ultimately RV is what you make of it.

Likewise, to those that post “RV has terrible employee reviews…” pay attention to most of the positions that are posting those bad reviews. Most of them are sales associates who work(ed) in the call center.

I plan to be at RV for at least the next decade because of the opportunity I see afforded to me and the recognition that I am able to receive.

philote 2021-08-18 18:56:06 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Just curious, what brought you to HN to create an account and comment on this post?

edwardofclt 2021-08-19 02:29:04 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I came to this site out of interest to see how people were responding only to find people hiding behind pseudonyms and bashing a company that does a shit ton of amazing tech. I’m half tempted to ask RvSucks what their real name is so I could give them a 360 review instead of hiding behind a keyboard.

It’s just funny to me how much angst some people have because of THEIR bad experience when thousands would say they have a great one.

I hope everyone the best. To each their own. But for me, at least for the foreseeable future, I’ll be at RV - building cool shit and being part of an amazing company.

drstewart 2021-08-18 21:23:50 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Just curious, why aren't you asking this question to the newly created RvSux account spamming this thread?

randallsquared 2021-08-18 22:36:15 +0000 UTC [ - ]

It seems pretty clear why someone named "RvSux" wants to post in this thread, doesn't it? :) Bad reviews are more easily motivated than good reviews, in general.

shapefrog 2021-08-18 20:59:24 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I would also like to welcome the new user to HN and thank them kindly for their first-hand account of the RV life.

nkotov 2021-08-18 16:11:16 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I worked at RV as a Platform Engineer for 20 months before starting my own company and getting into YC. On the culture side, I personally enjoyed it as almost everyone was around the same as me and all were young and hungry to put in more work. On the tech side, there was always a push to get more done in less time. Constantly, there were super tight deadlines which resulted in bad code and then you just move on to the next thing without maintaining it. This would cause a lot of tech debt that was to be addressed, "when we had time". Overall, I still think RV was an awesome place to get started in (especially in the NC/SC area), then go work somewhere else and boomerang back into a more senior position.

cameron_b 2021-08-18 17:59:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Yes this,

I heard several times that he "Business reviews" were a mini MBA course, but I think there was more value in watching the way leaders freed engineers to creatively solve a problem, and then reigned them in just across the line of an MVP, to focus on something new. It was very hard for me to understand the objectives at times, but it was clear eventually that there were diminishing returns in allowing the pursuit of engineering goals over business goals.

I learned a lot, even from outside most of the interactions I observed.

Cheers to you and your team Mr Kotov

chuckreynolds 2021-08-18 18:11:54 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Could probably talk hours about this... but not here to shit on them at all. I was part of the acquisition of the CNET media group. RV contracted us from VCBS until the end of 2020. I was working with their teams as early as Oct/Nov but technically only "worked" for RV from Jan 1 to the end of June 2021. I know a lot of the writers/editors on our sites that came over in the acquisition were nervous because RV is very affiliate heavy; some got offers, some didn't, some bailed ship. In the short time I was there RV was mostly onboarding our various teams and figuring out who on their side could work best with each site/vertical and looking at current rev streams vs what they could contribute in. With the exception of one or two people, I thought the RV people I worked with were really nice and had good intentions with the sites they acquired. Socially I felt like they were welcoming (yeah, lots of rah ray stuff) and were more in a position to learn from me/us more so than looking to just "lay down the law". That was an initial concern within the VCBS teams but the process felt fine. Again I can only speak to the VCBS sites and our experience. There were internal problems with some of our sites before RV and they inherited some issues that will persist for a while... mentioning that as not all blame can be put on RV for some things, they'll work those out in time. My only real issue with RV is they had some people in rolls that I felt were too technical for them to perform well, which wasn't unknown but slow process to change. They hire from colleges in the SC/NC area a lot and train up to cycle them through the various sites. Nothing wrong with that strategy per-say but it's like the 'ol traditional agency model there; just hire fresh out of college kids and train them how you do things and then just have them continue to do that thing. Also a lot of people there have worked there for a long time... to some that may be a good sign, to others perhaps not; your call.

Many may not know how the affiliate world works but that's the world they're in... not surprising to me but at least with our sites RV was interested in seeing what fit into the current site instead of just selling every possible thing on every possible site; which some of the comments here assume is/will happen, but not really how it was internally. It's a game they're pretty good at playing (as are others) and a more competitive game more and more every day. Just how things are these days. Search for "Best XXXX" anything and you'll see all the sites playing that game... lot more "news" sites the last couple years getting into that game. Also NYT bringing wirecutter into their domain instead of stand-alone. Play ball!

Anyway, I don't have any ill will against RV and from what I experienced they were a pretty good company to work for given my roll and the situation I was in with the acquisition. Others certainly seem to have different experiences and that's fine. Can just speak to my time there only. And sure, I'm down to answer questions if you feel my limited insight could help.

2021-08-18 12:49:51 +0000 UTC [ - ]

2021-08-18 09:05:48 +0000 UTC [ - ]

gverrilla 2021-08-18 20:57:47 +0000 UTC [ - ]

10 paragraphs with nothing.