Freelance Platform Upwork's Opt-in Service Tracks Freelancers By Capturing Screenshots, Webcam Photos and Measuring Clicks and Keystrokes Frequency (buzzfeednews.com) 85
Caroline O'Donovan, reporting for BuzzFeed News: To convince workers to join the unstable and unreliable world of freelance work, startups and platforms often promise freedom and flexibility. But on the digital freelance platform Upwork, company software tracks hundreds of freelancers while they work by saving screenshots, measuring the frequency of their clicks and keystrokes, and even sometimes taking webcam photos of the workers. Upwork, which hosts "millions" of coding and design gigs, guarantees payment for freelancers, even if the clients who hired them refuse to pay. But in order to get the money, freelancers have to agree in advance to use Upwork's digital Work Diary, which counts keystrokes to measure how "productive" they are and takes screenshots of their computer screens to determine whether they're actually doing the work they say they're doing.
Upwork's tracker isn't automatically turned on for all gigs on the platform. Some freelancers like it because it guarantees payment, but others find it unnerving. [...] Upwork maintains that freelancers don't have to use the time tracker if it makes them uncomfortable. [...] But while Work Diary may be opt-in on its surface, Microsoft Research's Mary Gray said freelancers may not feel like they really have a choice.
Upwork's tracker isn't automatically turned on for all gigs on the platform. Some freelancers like it because it guarantees payment, but others find it unnerving. [...] Upwork maintains that freelancers don't have to use the time tracker if it makes them uncomfortable. [...] But while Work Diary may be opt-in on its surface, Microsoft Research's Mary Gray said freelancers may not feel like they really have a choice.
Re: (Score:3)
But this is in the case of when you do the work and the client _doesn't_ pay.
You get a lawyer [youtube.com].
Re: (Score:1)
lawyers don't take collection cases for $2000. even $20,000 is iffy whether it's worthwhile to sue.
Re: ya'll niggas never freelanced (Score:2)
Re: ya'll niggas never freelanced (Score:2)
Good luck using small claims to sue a pseudonym in russia. Even if you could identify the individual or company, what jurisdiction and is it really worth the hassle for a few hundred bucks?
Re: (Score:3)
The better question might be - why are you expecting to get paid when working for a Russian pseudonym?
Re: (Score:2)
The better question might be - why are you expecting to get paid when working for a Russian pseudonym?
That's how Upwork works. You put money in escrow, some untrusted person does the work for you (or you do the work for some untrusted person), and upwork releases the money. It's similar to ebay where you are buying from chinese pseudonyms and ebay has a system in place to make sure you receive your product.
The logging/monitoring is one of the ways upwork tries to protect the buyer/seller. I've personally never used the logging but I have used Upwork for lots of small $50-$150 USD jobs and it works great.
Re: (Score:3)
But this is in the case of when you do the work and the client _doesn't_ pay.
I get requirements and deliver working code. I just need some repository that third party experts can review to verify that the various bits of the contract have been satisfied. I suppose if I bid a job to produce half a million keystrokes, this system would help. But a monkey could probably hit the keyboard faster than I could.
Re: (Score:2)
Just a training run before they move you up to the Trump related stuff, Ivan?
Re: (Score:2)
Copying and pasting, cloning, free software is a perfectly acceptable form of work.
Unless your customer prohibits this as a part of your contract terms. Possibly wanting to sell their product in the proprietary market. But then you go and copy anyway. And that fact is discovered by the copyright owners of the GPL (for example) code. And they sue your customer, who then turns around and sues you.
By definition a free lancer is not the person to create something original.
Really? I'd like to see where this definition is written.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Hitting space and backspace constantly is "activity" but it's not useful work. keystrokes and/or keystroke rate is a valuable metric for a typist. For a developer though, if they sit quietly for a bit and then type in the perfect line of code that works better than the naive 20 lines of code a monkey could come up with, it's good work.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Bean-counting asshole: I've noticed you don't type very much.
Me: That's because I think a lot before I do it.
Counting Keystrokes (Score:5, Funny)
Counting keystrokes is a silly idea!!!!!!!!!! Really it is !!!!!!!!! That could never be abused!!!!!!!! No way to pad that!!!!!!!!
I pity the reviewers (Score:4, Funny)
Working from home is great. And sometimes I even put clothes on!
Re: (Score:2)
Name of multinational?
I'd consider this (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Sure... but there's no reason to suspect you can.
Re: (Score:2)
You can at least try it and if that doesn't work, ramp up your work again.
Been freelancing for over 3 years now. Working from home is good and bad. Great in bad weather and to save money (gas/lunch). Bad when you can't seem to let go of work. Have times where I feel like I need to be working if I am at home. So then to relax I leave the house and waste money.
technoid_
Re: (Score:2)
Any employer that wants to make sure you're typing fast enough and look over your shoulder every 10 minutes and count against you if they can't see your screen is definitely NOT looking to pay you well. They're looking for monkeys and intend to pay peanuts.
That analysis may not be 100% reliable, but it's the smart way to bet.
Re: I'd consider this (Score:2)
I think it's mostly used as a failsafe. Most employers likely only look at it if they suspect a problem. Kindof like cop cams. It's nice protection for both sides.
Re: (Score:2)
If they suspect a problem, they should be looking at your repo commits not how many keys you hit. If the data is being collected, even "just in case", then the mentality is there. You will get peanuts.
Re: (Score:2)
Hey boss, I quit. But don't replace me, I might want to come back a bit in a year or two.
Yeah, I'm sure he'll do that for you.
How does this work? (Score:2)
How is it you can't spoof key strokes, screen shots, and bits of Web cam footage? Get a little done in the first half hour of the day, screenshot (or screen record) several dozen files being edited, and have the clock spliced into the screenshot automatically throughout the rest of the day. Auto-hide your task bar so there's never a clock. Use video recorded on different days throughout the day, based on time of day.
It's a 200-line bash script.
Coding time and KLOC are similar concepts. You won't hol
No, Upwork isn't the client... (Score:2)
They're the foreman, and there is no shop steward to make 'em knock it off.
You don't have to use the time tracker... and ya don't have to be paid by them either.
I love subtlety
Re:Never go full psychopath! (Score:4, Insightful)
No gun, but you can bet they're hoping to soak up the potential alternatives until it's the tracker or "want fries with that?"
If schemes such as these go away, the need for work to be done won't go away, it's just that the people doing the work will be offered less creepy conditions to work under.
Re: (Score:2)
Can you forward me the memo? I missed that one.
They’re not the only ones (Score:2)
TopTal / Top Tracker does it, and is very up front about it. This practice is intended as a way for the freelancer to ostensibly prove, when necessary, that they were actually doing client work during the time they clocked. It’s also very simple to turn it off.
If you don’t like it, don’t use them. I’m not feeling the outrage here.
Re:They’re not the only ones (Score:4, Informative)
Surely the proof that you did the work would be ... the work?
I don't need to take screenshots of a bricklayer at intervals of a minute; either the wall's there (and it's up to standard - straight and level and awesome and all that) or it isn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, even if you did put the hours in they could still claim it doesn't work[1] and use that as an excuse not to pay. Seems it gives them a second way to screw you over.
[1] Which might actually be true, but that's another can of horses.
How are they measuring this on linux? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They have a Linux time tracker.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I would be extremely reluctant to accept a milestone based contract. If problem come up that are not my fault but which delay the milestones then I'm going to be paying for that.
As a company I'd be worried that the contractor is only interested in hitting the milestones as quickly as possible, rather than delivering good code or a robust system.
Re: (Score:3)
It's all about risk management. In regular business contracts, pay per milestone is also known as Firm Fixed Price (FFP) - the price is fixed and based on effort est
this may make the freelances W2 and not 1099 (Score:2)
this may make the freelances W2 and not 1099.
As they are being forced to there tools and there may even be time clock issues with them being marked inactive when not making keystrokes as if all work must be done online and one system.
What if someone is on a call?
What about stuff like working in an Linux distro that they don't have software for. (centos 7 is on that list)
In office meetings?
Drive time?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If I'm doing something really complex I often fiddle around a bit prototyping the basics, spend a day or two doing apparently nothing, then blitz it in an afternoon. Sometimes it's like the code writes itself.
One time I think it did write itself, or maybe it was the elves. I was in no fit state after a very liquid lunch but it appeared from somewhere.
Re: (Score:2)
In most places where I have worked in 1099 contractor roles, the customer cannot tell you when to show up to work. They just pay you for hours worked.
However, if you are W2 and work for a B2B firm as a contractor to the prime, your hours are dictated by the B2B firm. If you are 1099 and work for a B2B your hours cannot be dictated.
Working as a W2 is very expensive for the employer. I doubt that option would be a good choice for a prime who is offering gigs on a freelance site since rates would be much hig
Or just buy a laptop without a camera (Score:2)
and use it only for this somewhat Orwellian monitoring tool.
If they're counting keystrokes and doing screenshots, it doesn't take
much effort to either do the work, or fake it to look like you're productive.
Do all your other "stuff" on your personal system...
I've worked with outsourcing firms who provided their own metrics to us for their
contractors "productivity" which never reported the hours the contractors spent on google search for code somewhat relevant to their work.
Input matters, not output! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So the quality of your work doesn't matter, as long as you sit there and look like you're doing a hell of a lot of it?
Occasionally that happens, yes. I've been a consultant and had a guaranteed minimum even if I couldn't bill anything, just show up and be "ready" and do misc work nobody cares much about. It's not a lasting situation though and I expect this program would soon kick you out too if you can never complete any work...
This is how some people think (Score:5, Insightful)
Got to pound the non-round pegs into the same round holes everyone else fits into, or you're not a 'productive worker'!
People do not like having anyone looking over their shoulder all the time, whether literally or 'virtually'.
You want people to be productive? Let them know what you need done, then get out of the way and let them do it. If they consistently don't get it done, then you can replace them with someone else, but micromanaging people is just plain stupid and that's what all this surveillance of 'freelance workers' is.
Re: (Score:2)
Guess what, if you leave people to their own devices they will be lazy, turn in work late or incomplete, fool around on company time and generally waste your money. Sounds like you had a career of high achievement while surrounded by high consciousness people. Most lower level jobs are full of low consciousness people who hate work and will happily cheat you.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Been a self employed contract programmer (Score:2)
If you want to be an anal retentive micro manager hire a programmer in house.
Want to improve your chances of delivery and acceptance. Write a great Design Specification and Acceptance Criteria document in the beginning. That protects both parties not this BS.
Just my 2 cents
Re: (Score:1)
Do clients really ask for this? (Score:3)
However, I only ever do fixed project bids: if you write X by Y and it meets Z quality standard, I will give you $$$. I could give two zits if you hacked it together in two hours or it took three times as long as you thought it would as long as you hit my quality standard. Not even remotely interested in knowing what else my hires were doing with their time as long as my thing was done.
Get in line (Score:1)
It's my understanding Windows 10 does much of the same, taking screenshots, recording keystrokes, listening to the mic, and uploading it to "the cloud".
They have a new multi-desktop feature that also goes to the cloud, their ultimate goal seems to be transferring your desktop as-you-use-it to the cloud so you can go to another computer and pick up where you left off.
Oh, and scan it all for stuff of interest to target advertising.
I think I'll start working for them... (Score:1)
On a more seriosus note, Freelancing is an equivalent of almost-free work and in developed countries is dead. You can't even hope to compete with Indian cheap labour.
This is not news. (Score:3)
The Upwork tracker has always done this, as did the oDesk client before the merger with Elance.
Everything about oDesk was far less buggy than the platform in place now, which is clearly developed offshore, along with seemingly everything else they can outsource.
The choice put before freelancers has always been: use the tracker or give up guaranteed payment. What's changed is Upwork's strategy, focusing on new client uptake and short-term projects. The top fee rate used to be 10%, but after the merger Upwork changed this to 20% for the first $10,000 of hourly work. Their automated job matching is feeble and basic... I'm not interested in 90% of the recommendations I get. Similarly, almost all of the interview invitations I get, which are sent by clients themselves, have little or nothing to do with my skillset.
The newest alarming thing is Upwork's account verification policy. For obtuse reasons, they will suspend your account until you verify your identity over video chat (with outsourced staff). It happened to me, and I've seen at least three Reddit posts about it.
Upwork has overall become a shitshow from the freelancer's perspective. But not because of the tracker app.
Re: (Score:2)
Three or four weeks ago I wanted to set up an account with them. ... that is not even 10% of my qualifications ... totally pointless for me.
The field where you enter your qualifications takes only about 10 topics
I've logged $200k+ worth of hours in upwork. (Score:1)
Freelance sites have been doing this for years (Score:2)
I'm not sure how this counts as news. Freelance sites have been doing this for years. It's at the option of the people offering the gig. The most common was just a webcam that took your picture every minute or so.
It's been like this for at least ten years.