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What he refers to (German): http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheinselbständigkeit
I think real information is needed only for validation, after that, unnecessary part could change to fake info.
If a customer have already doing business with you for years and never bother you, why you still need to keep his real address in a live database?
100% ACK!
@mikho
I was talking about companies where the "product" is the owners work, i.e. where the company is basically just a legal "coat" over the owners work. And that is illegal in quite some legislations, usually for tax reasons.
Funnily this is often not the case, if the product/service is corp. management.
As for the legal docs, can you show them saying that it's OK for, say, an Romanian doing de-facto employed work in Italy through a romanian company? I would think that our word is good enough as long as we are not the case ourselves.
Yes, that is one well known (and rather tough) case.
That's also my point. Funnily it was accepted as absolutely correct for the client but when it turned toward the provider, the story got quickly bent and ugly...
@bsdguy
http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=707&langId=en&intPageId=214
EU endorses work across borders.
Yes it does. It also does endorse companies doing business across borders. Whether it endorses de-facto employee work through one man companies across borders and possibly ducking (or picking and playing most favourable) social and tax settings is a quite different question and the answer is probably "no".
Pardon me for being straight: I understand that providers stick together in defending (imaginary or real) legal positions in their favour. But I think pretty every human being would tend to assume that fairness and balance ("equal rights") are desirable and should be the norm.
"You have to give me everything and you get nothing, f-ck you!" just isn't an acceptable position, no matter how many arguments, turns and gadgets providers come up with.
All in all positions like that just create bad feelings and loss of clients in the long run. And what for? Because providers who want to know everything from clients adresses to clients banking (or equivalent) info feel it to be inacceptable to tell a client so much as a real name? Come on ...
@bsdguy
I couldn't care less about "providers sticking together defending eachother", if I have something to add to a conversation I will say so. Doesn't matter if it is defending or attacking the provider. (I am not a provider, only "working" for one).
I've spoken to a few providers here and locally and voiced my opinion if they asked for it. Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don't.
Yet we see/read more and more about company people in top positions (yes, they are humans even if that is questionable) act against "equal rights" and "fairness".
I do not agree what Mao does, never will. It is double standard at the lowest. (Clarification: talking about using fake info when signing up with other providers).
But I will stand up for his right as a company owner to take a job wherever he pleases. And whole talking about that subject, do you know for a fact that this company only works for Uncle? Or is that also your assumption and therefor a "fact"!
You are still short on quoting any law that says so, whether eu-wide or particular to some country.
What William quoted is a simple tax evasion prevention case where INDEPENDENT workers or "contractors" are hired to do the job of regular workers within the same country, INSTEAD of through regular employment. This way the collective bargains do not apply and some taxes are not due for the "independent contractors" NOT companies with full legal employment paying a lot of taxes. Not to mention that my company only last year had Prometeus as main customer, and we are far from having 5/6 of revenue from prometeus alone. We also have 2 employees of which only one is working for prometeus, so, that avenue of attack is completely irrelevant to the basic question:
Is it required by any law that the personal data of employees (or third party employees working under contract for a provider) should be made available to the customers of that provider.
Until proven by a link to an active piece of legislature or @bsdguy filing a complaint with the relevant authorities in his country and winning an injunction requiring that my personal data be handed to him, the answer is clearly no.
@mikho
Right now, Maounique needs to concentrate fully on the situation in Milano. Let's agree to postpone that discussion.
And, no, I didn't call it a fact (his company). After all, I'm fighting his position/view - not himself as a person.
Wait, what?!?!?
Why would the argument between you and I be put on hold because a problem in Milan?!?
Wait, what?!?!??
YOU are the one calling his actions, working for another company in another country illegal because YOU claimed his company has no other customers.
Guess you got so mixed up with your own arguments that you fell flat on your ass.
Why would the argument between you and I be put on hold because a problem in Milan?!?
Because one major party in that discussion is justifiably absent
Maybe that's what you read.
Now you're getting intellectual. That's my weak spot
No, I and others are waiting for your link that confirms your statement that it is illegal (in Europe) for a company to have their employees work as consultants/contractors for another company in another country.
Mao is not part of that discussion.
I cannot do much more than relay what Salvatore tells me on his phone chat. I did that already, so feel free to link the laws, i know francais, italiano, espanol, deutch, ellinika, bulgarski, portugues, ruski, ABN, norsk, svenska, besides Romana and English enough to be able to read in those languages a clear official document without google translate.
Have a good time waiting. Or pay me. Or a lawyer if you need legal advice. I'm not in the habit to take orders from people who are neither policemen nor paying me
For the moment you may find solace in looking at the Wikipedia link William provided for an example.
In other words: If you don't believe me without proof that's fine with me. I know what I know and I know it from concrete experience. Thank you so much.
Already proven as irrelevant for the discussion.
@bsdguy
You know that goes both ways. Remember that exact wording the next time you ask/demand for a link to backup someone elses statement.
Already happened. When I asked you.
Let's face it. We're not lawyers. What we know is based on personal experience or what we learned from reliable sources. And it's not important anyway, because Maounique started that path only for one reason, to distract from the ugly obvious:
"You have to give me everything and you get nothing, f-ck you!" just isn't an acceptable position, no matter how many arguments, turns and gadgets providers come up with.
THAT is my concern, and not Maouniques de-facto employment situation, although I'm quite confident that he doesn't run that company because running a company is a nice hobby.
That is a moral, not legal stance.
Let me explain the moral issue, and I am on your side with this.
Conclusion, we only disseminate the minimum of information required by law in any situation, whether it pertains to employees or customers and only to the parties we are required by law to disseminate to. Nothing more.
As for the fake data I provide, that does not mean I am untraceable, just it shields me from the regular joe dick and harry, not any authorities. I know the risks (void contract, termination of servers or domains) if there is a doubt. It happened twice only because I know what I am doing.
We are doing reasonable efforts to enforce the legal requirements, but nobody can expect us to be better than the police or paypal. If you managed to fool paypal, you have a fair chance to pass our checks, but the police will not be able to accuse us of any wrongdoing. However, I do manage to spot a lot of tricks, especially since I am some kind of expert in this field. The police will have no case against Prometeus, if anything, i will be able to prove we did much more than the vast majority with the checks, even big companies.
As for why are we using whmcs. Well, should we have a vote of which is better? Which will win?
That is a business decision, if whmcs will have a vulnerability, or php, or the linux kernel, apache/lightspeed/mysql/ssl/ssh, whatever who can prevent those, which system is unhackable? this is the risk of doing business online, I trust uncle and so far, we had no leak that we know of, but I am sure the backdoors of various agencies can and will be exploited at some time, in any commercially available or FOS software out there.
You put your data in a form on the internet, it is already public.
My problem isn' t the authorities. I don't do criminals things and, no matter what, authorities get at peoples info anyway, legally or illegaly.
I mistrust YOU. And you are just a "regular joe dick and harry" for me. The bookkeeping department of Prometeus is OK for me; I have no qualms about them having my data.
But someone from support having access to private client data is completely unnecessary and a slap in the face of customer trust - and btw. against the law which in Europe clearly stipulates that access to such data must be kept to the necessary minimum.
Maybe I should have a closer look at WHMCS trust separation ... but I don't hold my breath on that.
I might also ask whether there is a proper NDA chain between P. and your company and yourself. But probably you'd tell me that's none of my business (your privacy, is important to you after all) and so what, I wouldn't believe you anyway.
Trust me, you do not really want to dig deeper into the legal issues.
Which brings us back to the real issue:
"You have to give me everything and you get nothing, f-ck you!" just isn't an acceptable position, no matter how many arguments, turns and gadgets providers come up with.
Actually, I do. You seem to avoid it.
And if you show me how can someone offer support without knowing if you are who you claim to be, I am listening. Or how can you prove your identity without support people having access to it.
You do not trust me, fine, then your only choice is to stop doing business with prometeus and go to a company which gives you a lot of guarantees or claims to own the moon and the stars as well as angels working for them. Your choice, I am honest here, whether you trust me or not. These latest incidents proved we are at our limit and we cannot handle much more than the current 4000ish active customers. We are welcoming those which have a long term commitment and were not disappointed by our efforts to keep their data private and secure from anyone. We will continue to do our best, but cannot avoid the law.
Changing the law is the citizen's responsibility and they seem to agree with a police state for various reasons. You are attacking the wrong people, but you can support the anti-privacy laws and doxing as much as you like,, we disagree here and nothing will make me change my stance, not even being killed by an anonymous murderer. It is better to die free than live ea life of fear and slavery.
True offshore providers do allow it or you don't even have to enter anything else than an email address. And even the email mustn't be valid due to no verification.
Indeed. There are solutions, but they are not sure at all, they could be honeypots and you can be sure mafia has a hand in at least some. The authorities will get you even without backdoors and mass surveillance by doing plain and simple police work, while playing in an organized and supervised field, at least you are reasonably protected from the mafias, if you are careful enough. And it is cheaper.
And yet you won't provide any proof to backup your claim that it is illegal. Unless someone pays you. Which in turn gets us this quote:
And then this:
Oh, please do. Enlighten us ignorant people of this community that is purely blessed by your presence.
@Maounique
Wrong on multiple points.
Support can work perfectly well without knowing personal details. Even the name isn't necessary and could be replace by a nick for support purposes. Neither the network, nor the node, nor the VPS are technically or operationally related to clients private data.
And no, stopping to do business with Prometeus is not my only choice. There are other choices. After all, the protection of clients data is a legal right not a favour that you can chose to offer or not.
Let me tell you something friendly but clear: You got some things terribly wrong. For instance the roles of clients and service personel. We clients pay, we make you earn money. We are not sheep at your mercy. Maybe you think you play it that way but ... which leads me to my second advice:
You play it hard, which may suit your personality. But you see, in 1000s of clients there are also district attorneys, tax inspectors, etc. And as you might know, authorities can play hard ball too, they can grossly ignore rights, too. Or, just imagine, I might be a police officer and I might get a little favour from a colleague of mine in Italy or in Romania. Sure, after 5 years you might win a court case but by then you are done and broken.
I think you should reconsider your perspective and your approach, particularly toward clients.
To give you another hint, you said in this discussion - quite arrogantly - something about 7$/month not buying a killer (which was idiotic anyway). Right, Mao. But 7$/mo buy me right the be a client of your client. And such they buy me the standing needed to give you some really bad days. Don't worry, this isn't a thread; I don't tick like that. I mentioned it just for you to see a quite different perspective.
I've offered you my hand more than once. And I've always been fair to Prometeus (just look at the other thread) and even to you. But you go ahead and ahead as if you were seeking an experience of limits. Frankly, I don't think it's wise to piss off people again and again. You might learn something from Salvatore on that. Attitude is one major reason for his success.
@mikho
Funny how one-sided you approach those things. Of course, the assumption that I'm talking about "lecturing" you on the matter by quoting legal sources seems to be self-evident.
But not necessarily correct. There are other ways of learning, too, some of them quite painful. I, for instance, learned much about tax laws during an unpleasant tax inspection. I wouldn't wish that to anyone although some seem to beg for it.
I am glad you do not handle support in any place. Otherwise I would send you a ticket asking to reinstall server with IP xx.xx.xx.xx and you should not check if I am the owner of it, because that would be invasion of my privacy. Or send me a copy of the data.
I am glad you understand the problem. I mean the abuse the authorities will do to reach their political or personal goals. You said you are not afraid of them, now you say you know how they operate, now you are attacking people which value their privacy. What are you trying to prove? I do not understand you.
Nice try.
I need to be a client to open a ticket, no? Even if not (didn't check it) you can certainly see whether a ticket comes from a client or from just anybody.
Moreover, I didn't say "any client information whatsoever". Of course support needs to and may see whether I'm in good standing (have payed) and what products I have with you.
Gladly I work in IT since decades (and actually ran a colo (as technical director)) and so I happen to know a very well proven and widely used way to solve that problem: client ids (e.g. client numbers). That allows a) separation of information and b) access for support to relevant information.
It might sound strange but actually there is a world, even one with IT, beyond WHMCS. You are welcome.
You keep mentioning that it is illegal but can not provide a single document (or link) to backup your claim. Why should accept your word for what you claim is true when my work experience says another thing. You are just another random anonymous person on the Internet posting YOUR views.
So put your money where your mouth is and show me something to backup what you say.
Is that a threat?
And whom might that be?
@mikho
Accept whatever you please to accept. Just understand that laws are not depending on what you believe or on what I say.
Bullshit. That's a simple statement that was meant to show you, how wrong your one-sided assumption can be.
You want me to explain the meaning of the word "some" to you?
and then later:
For the unaware, Mao isn't referring to two different people. Uncle/Sal is the same fella.
I'll take the other claims with a grain of salt.