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Tell HN: YC companies scrape GitHub activity, send spam emails to users
Hacker News · Feb 26, 2026 · Collected from RSS
Summary
Hi HN, I recently noticed that an YC company (Run ANywhere, W26) sent me the following email: From: Aditya Subject: Mikołaj, think you'd like this [snip] Hi Mikołaj, I found your GitHub and thought you might like what we're building. [snip] I have also received a deluge of similar emails from another AI company, Voice.AI (doesn't seem to be YC affiliated). These emails indicate that those companies scrape people's Github activity, and if they notice users contributing to repos in their field of business, send marketing emails to those users without receiving their consent. My guess is that they use commit metadata for this purpose. This includes recipients under the GDPR (AKA me). I've sent complaints to both organizations, no response so far. I have just contacted both Github and YC Ethics on this issue, I'll update here if I get a response. Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47163885 Points: 69 # Comments: 21
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Tell HN: YC companies scrape GitHub activity, send spam emails to users74 points by miki123211 2 hours ago | hide | past | favorite | 25 commentsHi HN,I recently noticed that an YC company (Run ANywhere, W26) sent me the following email:From: Aditya <aditya@buildrunanywhere.org>Subject: Mikołaj, think you'd like this[snip]Hi Mikołaj,I found your GitHub and thought you might like what we're building.[snip]I have also received a deluge of similar emails from another AI company, Voice.AI (doesn't seem to be YC affiliated). These emails indicate that those companies scrape people's Github activity, and if they notice users contributing to repos in their field of business, send marketing emails to those users without receiving their consent. My guess is that they use commit metadata for this purpose. This includes recipients under the GDPR (AKA me).I've sent complaints to both organizations, no response so far.I have just contacted both Github and YC Ethics on this issue, I'll update here if I get a response. help Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact
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