Big Brother at outsourcing sites: Screen caps? Oh, puh-leeze!

Until now, I’ve recommended outsourcing sites like Elance and oDesk to my beginning writing students.

Sadly, I can no longer do that, after reading Jenn Mattern’s excellent article: “Another Freelance Marketplace Bites the Dust — Elance Work View”.

I have no idea what these companies are thinking. Apparently Elance now has a feature called Work View, which Jenn says: “… means clients get to view a stream of your work as it’s completed — they know when you’re working, whether you’re there at your computer or not working on their project, etc. by feeding them screenshots.”

SCREENSHOTS? I have questions, lots of questions…

How do they do this? What application do you need to be running to allow it? What guarantees are there that the application isn’t downloading all kinds of stuff from your machine in the background, as you work?

I don’t get work from the outsourcing sites, so it’s no skin off my nose, essentially. If you do work on these sites, be very careful before you download ANY spyware to your computer.

Here’s what I wrote in the comments to Jenn’s article:

This is totally over the top. No way would I allow a snooping app to take screenshots of my Mac while I’m working. I’ve got a 30 inch Cinema screen, and I’m usually working on three or four projects at any one time, with many documents open (some of which are clients’ proprietary material) — there’s no way to guarantee client confidentiality if you allow this nonsense.

As you’ve pointed out Jenn — this definitely assumes an employer/ employee relationship, which is a no-no in outsourcing; when a business employs you, they pay a premium for that, and have obligations.

If an Australian outsourcing company decided to do this, I’d report them to the ATO (Australian tax office) as fast as I could type. Direct supervision (which is what snooping is) portrays an employee relationship, not that of an independent contractor. In Australia that would trigger all sorts of nasties for the employer, including payroll tax.

How to find writing jobs if you’re a beginning freelance writer

For new writers, the outsourcing sites have long been a way to get your start. You could begin working with clients, and get some feedback and testimonials. On these sites, you are paid to learn, essentially. Some established writers have used these sites to develop well-paid careers.

My last experience with Elance was five years ago, and I enjoyed working on the site whenever I had holes in my calendar.

Here’s what I loved about the site: the amount of projects available.

Here’s what I disliked: the number of buyers who weren’t familiar with freelancers and had no idea what they wanted. Many buyers blatantly used the site solely to scope projects: they had no intention of hiring anyone. Elance had to have been aware of this, yet they allowed it to go on. For all I know, they may still allow it.

So if you don’t like the idea of some company which is completely unknown to you snooping and taking screenshots of your desktop (and doing who knows what on your computer), what do you do?

Firstly, if you’re a beginning writer, realize that you can get freelance gigs all over the Web. Twitter is an excellent source. Just do a Twitter search for “#writing jobs” for a constant stream of gigs. I cover how to get writing jobs on Twitter in my “Twitter for Writers: Achieve Writing Success 25 Words at a Time” guide.

If you’re an established writer, market your services — ADVERTISE. There are endless ways to advertise your writing services online, both free and paid services, and you’ll soon get more work than you can handle.

Just out of curiosity, I’d love to know where these outsourcing sites think they’re going with this kind of thing. My advice to you: beware. Never let any application take control of your computer desktop for any reason. You may be giving away your entire career.