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Communicating On and Outside of Upwork - Terms of Service Changes

daryl_sando
Community Member

Today, Upwork users can, with certain exceptions, share contact information and communicate with each other outside of the Upwork platform. Unfortunately, communicating outside of Upwork raises risks for talent and clients in our community, while undermining the wellbeing of the marketplace. 

 

To protect our community, we are making changes to our Terms of Service that will require all pre-contract communications take place on Upwork and no contact information to be shared before a contract is started. These changes will become effective June 26, 2020. 

 

Here we would like to tell you about these changes so you can understand what they entail and why we are making them.  

 

WHY ARE WE MAKING THESE CHANGES?

 

The goal of these changes is to create a safe environment in which both talent and clients can thrive. We have found that when users communicate outside of Upwork there is an increased risk in fraud, scam, circumvention, and other behaviors that harm our community. But when communications and work stay on the Upwork platform, not only can we track, verify, and address any issues that emerge, the potential for these behaviors to cause harm decreases dramatically. For example, the vast majority of scammers that take advantage of talent on Upwork do so by taking work or communications off the platform. 

 

When relationships are maintained on Upwork, those outcomes become part of the record on the platform, providing transparency for other users into the reputation and success of other professionals and talent. This transparency allows for better connections, stronger relationships, and ultimately more success for professionals and clients. 

 


WHAT ARE THE CHANGES?

 

These changes apply to Section 7 of the User Agreement:

 

  1. Professionals and clients may not request or share any contact information before a contract is started

Before a contract has started, professionals and clients won’t be able to ask for or share contact information with each other that would allow them to make contact outside of Upwork. This includes requesting or providing contact details in a profile, job post, proposal, invite, or message, which is an expansion from the current restriction on contact information sharing that was limited to just profiles and job postings. 

 

Update: Freelancers and clients may not request or share any contact information* before a contract is started, with one exception.  A client or freelancer may only share contact information if it is for the sole purpose of giving the other party access to a system that allows them to scope the project in advance. This allows freelancers to review a project prior to a contract so they can determine if they have the needed skills, how many hours it will take, etc. 

 

This change also provides more clarity on what constitutes contact information, which will include but not be limited to: 

  • Phone number
  • Email address
  • Physical address
  • Link to a contact form or form requesting contact information
  • Link to an applicant management system or means to submit a proposal or application outside of Upwork
  • Any information that would enable contact through social media, other website, platform, or application (i.e., Skype or WhatsApp IDs)

 

  1. Users must conduct all pre-contract conversations (aka interviews) through the Upwork platform

As professionals and clients meet and engage on Upwork, they will need to maintain their communications - whether messages, phone, or video calls - through the Upwork platform until a contract has started. 

 

  1. Exception

Our larger business partners often have specific requirements and business needs that make it more difficult to use our communications exclusively. Clients who utilize Upwork Business and Enterprise solutions are permitted to request and share contact information, as well as conduct interviews or pre-contract communications, outside of Upwork. This exception extends to professionals’ communications with an Upwork Business or Enterprise client. 

 


HOW ARE WE ENABLING THESE CHANGES?

 

To support these changes, we have also made improvements to our internal Message Center. We recently upgraded our call and video systems to provide more consistent uptime and a higher quality of service. These changes have provided improvements in user experience and overall user satisfaction. We have enhanced the user experience to provide more straightforward access to this service and flexibility in viewing. Lastly, we are continuing to prioritize improvements to the Message Center to ensure our users have a best in class experience in communicating with each other. Find out more about these upgrades here

 

Our goal: To keep the Upwork community safe

These changes will help keep Upwork’s marketplace somewhere for both professionals and clients to thrive while preventing breaches of trust that put the community at risk. If you have any questions, please comment below or contact Upwork Help.

 

The updated Terms of Service will become effective June 26, 2020.

 

Daryl Sando, Sr. Manager

Upwork Trust & Safety

 

**UPDATE**

 

We appreciate feedback shared on this thread about this upcoming change. We’d like to address and highlight a few concerns that came up multiple times on this thread.

 

  • Many of you noted that you often need to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement prior to accepting an offer. We've heard your feedback and made the decision to make an exception regarding legal documents. If prior to starting a contract a legal document must be shared that includes contact informaton (such as NDAs), this will be permitted.

 

  • We understand that many of you need to share large files with your freelancers and clients. Users are free to share files via Upwork Messages at any time. Documents can be added into Messages for sharing or you can use Upwork’s  integration with Dropbox to share files. If critical project information is stored in a system that requires an email address to access, you can share your email address for this purpose only. Remember all communications before a contract starts must take place on Upwork. 

 

  • You can share a portfolio that’s not on Upwork. We know sharing your past work is important. Therefore, you can share links to external portfolios when you submit a proposal. Note: We understand external portfolios may include contact information. If you cannot remove that information, please ask the client to only contact you via Upwork.

 

  • We understand that many of you need a way to schedule meetings and interviews via a calendar. Upwork Messages enables users to quickly coordinate interview timing and conduct live interviews using the call feature. We’re constantly looking at ways to improve this experience so we appreciate your feedback.

 

  • We’d like to confirm that calls made through Upwork Messages are not recorded. We encourage users to report violations of any sections of our TOS including these changes. We also have mechanisms in place to identify and flag TOS violations
1,026 Comments
claytonbotkin
Community Member

This is a mistake. Enterprise organizations do not see Upwork as an approved communication method and, therefore, I have been unable to have calls within your system. As such, I have already moved my business away from Upwork, but for those who havent already, you will see this market dry up quickly.

pandoraharper
Community Member

Clare L wrote:

 

I literally just today had one client tell me I'm going to need to meet with two members of his project management team via Skype tomorrow for our interview (as far as I know, the Upwork video chat feature does not even allow three users to be on a meeting at once).

 

Oh man, that's bad news for myself and my current customer (Upwork customer). That's assuming said customer continues to use Upwork, which is doubtful right now. Team interviews are common in my industry.


 

engineer-mahmoud
Community Member
thats right
outbound
Community Member

I would think this was a joke, but sadly it was not posted on April 1. 

 

I've tried Upwork communications. They fail 2 out of 3 times - there's no viable screen share. Please stop trying to be Zoom or Skype, and focus what you're good at. 

 

Companies that try to control everything eventually lose it all. And you don't have the brand cachet of Apple to pull that off. 

 

I've started to find freelancers from other places, even though I've been with Elance/Upwork since 2010. 

 

Such a waste.

jcmanheimer
Community Member

I am one of the best direct mail copywriters in the world and perhaps the most expensive copywriter on UpWork.  (If you google "direct mail copywriter," you'll see I come out #1 in the United States.)  To command such high fees, I need to overwhelm the prospect with a jaw-dropping portfolio containing dozens upon dozens of direct mail packages; i.e., I need to send them to my website,**Edited for Community Guidelines**, for a near-religious experience. 

 

This rule is nothing short of ... castration.

wendy_writes
Community Member

+ 1,000,000 to Scott's comment

colelaj
Community Member

Just to clarify - as I use Calendly to manage my schedule with potential clients, will I be able to still send a Calendly link for the business to schedule a call? If so, would that call have to take place on Upwork?

garrek
Community Member

Stacey G wrote:

Because there is nothing clients love more than being told they need to learn how to use an abrtirary screensharing system. So now I get to lose potential clients after paying to apply for freelance jobs.

 

Upwork is just daring its talent pool to leave at this point, right?



I don't particularly like paying to apply for a job either, be it freelance or not. I can understand the 20% fee when submitting work, but even that is a high percentage.

 

To Upwork: If this new change is in response to people taking clients off the platform it might be the two issues I've noted above.

ppolewicz
Community Member

I think we can sign zero-hour contracts to bypass this restriction (after all, after the contract was signed the rules no longer apply). Is that right @Valeria?

 

Then a few months later, JSS (that penalty system with unknown rules, you know) is going to start hitting people with "low performance" scores.

 

The PR bit about doing this for our own good is actually amazing. Thank you, we'd rather pass. Can I please sign a paper that says I don't want the guarantee or arbitrage but I want to talk to people over a video communication tool that actually works? Out of 20+ tries I gave it, this worked maybe twice.

 

NDAs, calendars, private code repositories, legal stuff that cannot be visible to Upwork Support (due to, you know, confidential nature of the work) - this will force people to do crazy things and will have ZERO impact on fraud.

kevinhickssw
Community Member

I don't want to reiterate all the complaints already posted here even though I will run into the same thing with my potential clients and won't be hiring freelancers on UpWork anymore. But wanted to point out how UpWork does realize these requirements are not ideal for hiring or they wouldn't provide exceptions for certain types of clients. Additionally I recently went through the interviewing process for a new UpWork program for top rated developers that is ran directly by UpWork staff and the process they followed for these interviews wouldn't pass these new terms of services. All communications about this new program were through email, I was required to schedule and provide personal contact information through Calendly and the interview was through Google Meet. This was also within the last month so its not like there were a ton of changes to make the communication better in UpWork that would have made a difference in the tools they picked.

If UpWork's tools were good enough for hiring, you would think they would use their tools themselves for their interviews. On top of all of this after passing all the interviews for this program, I was told I would need to have Calendly set up, up to date Linkedin, Github, etc.. For UpWork's own new developer program these now prohibited tools and links are required/heavily encouraged because its for special types of clients.

Finally I am pretty sure all of my clients I got through UpWork, including several $40,000+ contracts, they would have not used UpWork if these changes had already been in place. I know for a fact the biggest client I have who has a lot more work coming my way would have never hired through UpWork with these terms. Their code and database has to be confidential due to HIPAA and would have been illegal to share through UpWork. They would not have hired me without me previously reviewing the code and database. I also was going to be looking to hire another developer for my agency and had another job posted looking for freelancers I will be canceling and moving off of UpWork because these new terms directly contradict with my agency's policies and procedures for hiring. I'm also going to be asking the active freelancer I still have hired through UpWork to move off the platform since it has been past the 2+ year requirement and I no longer will be able to hire new freelancers on UpWork with these terms.