If you’re not a frequent visitor to the Elance Water Cooler, you may have missed the drama that unfolded a couple of days ago. It highlights an issue that every Elance writer should be aware of. For those of you who would rather not scroll through all 113 posts (and counting) to find out what’s going on, you’ll find a summary of the issue and the potential ways in which it could affect you and your business here…
It all began when a Elance buyer posted to the forum asking whether there was a way to have one contractor take over from another in cases where the first contractor failed to deliver a satisfactory result.
An Elance representative responded to the question, telling the buyer that he could invite someone else to the Workroom by emailing them a web link. The invited guest doesn’t even need to be an Elance member: the link can be accessed by anyone. The original contractor has no option to block access, and in fact is not even notified when a “guest” is invited into their Workroom by the buyer.
Most—if not all—Elance contractors were unaware of this Workroom feature, and were horrified to discover that their private communications, proprietary documents, and, in some cases, intellectual property could be exposed to an unknown, unauthorized third party so easily. To see exactly how easy it is to invite someone—anyone—into a “private” Workroom, take a look at these instructions on the Elance site.
As many angry Elance contractors quickly pointed out, this is a major breach of privacy and confidentiality. The posts have been building up on this thread, with contractors (many of them writers) pointing out the many ways in which this feature can put Elance contractors at risk. Here is a list of some of the most concerning aspects for writers who use the Elance site:
- If you have spent time crafting a service agreement document, and especially if you have paid money to have a lawyer help you draft one that protects your business, a competitor could simply lift the contract from the Workroom and use it as their own.
- If you offer buyers proprietary data or other unique service elements, the “guest” will be able to view them in their entirety. For instance, a PR professional might have shared media contact information that she has spent decades collecting. A ghostwriter might have shared step-by-step information on how to prepare a book for publication. A marketing writer might have shared a case study template she had spent years perfecting. These trade secrets would all be visible and there for the taking.
- If you have uploaded any private portfolio samples to the Workroom, the third party will be able to view and download them.
- If you have not been paid for the work you produced for a buyer, that buyer can still invite guests to the Workroom where the work was uploaded. If this work is subsequently plagiarized and appears on the Internet, it will be much more difficult to prove that the buyer used the work without permission. The more people who have access to the unpublished work, the harder it is to prove exactly who stole what.
- Although your original Elance job proposal is not available to the “guest,” any subsequent Workroom negotiations about what you charge for a particular service are visible to them, which gives a potential competitor valuable information about your rates.
Clearly, this issue has grave consequences.If you and your buyer have signed a mutual non-disclosure agreement, such as the one Elance itself makes available to site users, it seems to me that inviting a third party into the Workroom would be a violation of your legal rights. If you, like the majority of Elance users, were unaware that your Workroom files and communications could be exposed to a third party without your permission, it’s a wake-up call.
What can you do to protect yourself, your business, and your intellectual property?
Unfortunately, not much. Until Elance changes their policy, the best thing Elance writers can do is be aware that the platform does not give them much protection. Tips include:
- Thinking twice before uploading anything to the Workroom. Would you feel comfortable letting your closest competitor see it? If not, consider sending it to the buyer via email.
- Consider reducing your reliance on the Workroom and using alternative communication methods, such as email and Skype, whenever possible.
- Be aware that an empty Workroom will count against you should you ever need to file a dispute with a non-paying client. Without Workroom evidence, the mediator has little to base their judgment on.
- Require partial up-front payment for work, and break the work into smaller paid milestones to minimize the risk of nonpayment.
Were you aware of the Elance policy around Workroom invitations? What steps do you take to protect yourself?
