Slashdot Mirror
Freelance Platform Upwork's Opt-in Service Tracks Freelancers By Capturing Screenshots, Webcam Photos and Measuring Clicks and Keystrokes Frequency (buzzfeednews.com)
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.
Counting keystrokes is a silly idea!!!!!!!!!! Really it is !!!!!!!!! That could never be abused!!!!!!!! No way to pad that!!!!!!!!
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Working from home is great. And sometimes I even put clothes on!
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
As creepy as this is, if I could pay my bills doing, say 2-3 days a week on this platform, I'd drop my full-time gig in a heartbeat.
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 hold freelance contracts very long if you produce at extremely high costs--such as by having normal hourly rates but charging for 6x as many hours.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
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
But this is in the case of when you do the work and the client _doesn't_ pay.
You get a lawyer.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
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.
#DeleteChrome
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.
Have gnu, will travel.
So what happens when someone walks up with a laptop running linux?
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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?
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.
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?
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.
for 30+ years. If a client ever proposed this I would pass on the project.
;)
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
I use Upwork to hire small or complicated jobs I don't want to do myself (or hire for). I've never heard of this level of tracking.
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.
Keyword stroke tracking is mostley for inactivity tracking. I used upwork awhile ago, and you get to see all of the screenshots, and if I remember right there was a bar that filled up. The more the bar was filled up the more "active" you where
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.
lawyers don't take collection cases for $2000. even $20,000 is iffy whether it's worthwhile to sue.
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.
...just so that I can show them a big hairy dick the next time they take a photo from my camera without authorisation.
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.
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.
That is what small claims court is for. You don't need a lawyer for that.
playmoney.me - The free alternative to paper board game play money
Ack, I'd end up looking like a real slacker -- I spend a lot of time with pen and paper, writing pseudo-code and mini-flowcharts while I explore proper solutions to coding problems.
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?
I've earnt $200k+ with upwork, all of it with the time tracker. An hour worked and logged, is an hour paid. No ifs, buts, maybes or discussion. No clients have ever had questions about the screenshots, I assume they review them. It's a good system that serves the interests of both parties. I much prefer using the tracker. It takes as long as it takes, and I get paid for it. Win. I should also note that fees go down significantly once you do 1/10k with a client. Upwork have looked after me very well and always pay on time. I doubt a significant %o f those hating on upwork and freelance gigs in general have ever logged any hours.
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.
Kriston
Can you forward me the memo? I missed that one.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Just a training run before they move you up to the Trump related stuff, Ivan?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Name of multinational?
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.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Bean-counting asshole: I've noticed you don't type very much.
Me: That's because I think a lot before I do it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The better question might be - why are you expecting to get paid when working for a Russian pseudonym?
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
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.
Have gnu, will travel.
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. I can put a 1-3 hour job up there, get some bids, accept a bidder, escrow the $50-150, and then release it once I'm satisfied with the result. Even the couple times that it's went into arbitration, the process has been smooth. With the right system in place whether it is uber, taskrabbit, ebay, or upwork, it's easy to build up a trust network that allows untrusted parties to interact.
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 estimates alone. Sometimes there may be continguencies but the risk is borne by the undertaker, so the price generally reflects this. (i.e., it's cost of doing the work plus overheads, plus profit, plus risk margin).
The other method, pay by the hour is generally referred to as Time and Materials (T&M). Here the worker is paid by the hour to do the work and it can take as long as it does (up to a cap). The risk is borne by the customer and often the margins are much smaller
The thing that changes is usually changes. In FFP, changes are typically followed by a change request and a bill for new charges for the changes. On T&M, the change is usually absorbed into the contract (it just takes more time).
In addition, the first work inside FFP is agreeing to not only the requirements, but an acceptance test plan - the milestone markers will not be decided one way or another, but by passing the tests specified in the test plan. So M1 might be passing tests 1-5, M2 1-10, etc. Never accept any FFP without a test plan in place or at least have a test plan as a milestone that needs acceptance.