When you have a headline that does not say what the actual topic is, and you are forced to click the article to find out the topic, that is called "clickbait".
In their defense (both OP and HubSpot) the original is written to customers already aware of the context, and HackerNews asks submitters not to editorialize by default.
It's not immediately more enlightening if you do click through either, except in the most general terms - some issue with changes to their Ts & Cs is alluded to in the first paragraph, and then there's a wall of text that probably does explain in more detail but simply didn't look like it was going to be interesting enough to bother reading.
And maybe that's the point: having just annoyed their customers, whilst they do need to communicate with and apologise to those customers - clearly the intended audience here - perhaps they don't want to kick up a massive fuss that lands on the front page of HN and other sites, and sparks a big discussion or controversy.
> When you have a headline that does not say what the actual topic is, and you are forced to click the article to find out the topic, that is called "clickbait".
I don't think it's clickbait, but it's still a poor article to link. It's a mea culpa about some kind of controversy, but that controversy isn't described in detail and you're assumed to already know what's going on.
It sounds like some TOS change about a "data enrichment" feature, but I have no idea what the issue was with that? Maybe training on that data or having data leak across customers?
HubSpot has been building a different solution for our customers. On August 4, Contact Discovery launches — and for the first time, your team can find, verify, and add net-new contacts without ever leaving HubSpot.
To support that, we’re updating our Customer Terms of Service, Product Specific Terms, Privacy Policy, Sub-Processors Page and Data Processing Agreement, effective July 1, 2026. This post explains what’s changing and why.
The contacts you find through Contact Discovery are reliable because they’ve been checked for deliverability, accuracy, and whether that person is still at that company. You’re not buying a raw list and hoping for the best. Every contact that surfaces has been validated, and decision-makers are ranked first.
That quality is only possible because of a shared dataset. When you opt into enrichment, some of your business contact data helps keep that dataset current. Everyone who participates gets more accurate data back in return. You never pay for a contact already in your CRM, and there’s no separate contract.
These are the new leads. These are the HubSpot leads, data mined from your own HubSpot account. And to you they're gold, and you don't get them. Why? Because to give them to you is just throwing them away. They're for closers. I'd wish you all good luck, but you wouldn't know what to do with it if you got it.
ToS missteps notwithstanding, it's a bit more than your data surfaced back to you. You share your data and in return you get to share in other people's data. Fairly common community data.
Whether it's what HubSpot customers want, opt in/opt out are valid criticisms.
My favourite bit of it was "We did not meet the standard you expect from HubSpot" - for anyone who's had the misfortune of using HubSpot, surely they met exactly the expected standard.
I am glad they were actually paying enough attention to make these changes. They saved themselves a lot of customers by changing their policy so quickly.
Wir hätten klarer kommunizieren müssen, was wir vorschlugen und wie es funktionieren würde.虽然我们 always intended for enrichment to remain strictly opt-in, we should have communicated better how that opt-in works, and importantly, how you as a customer could ensure you remain in control of that choice.
When you have a headline that does not say what the actual topic is, and you are forced to click the article to find out the topic, that is called "clickbait".
In their defense (both OP and HubSpot) the original is written to customers already aware of the context, and HackerNews asks submitters not to editorialize by default.
It's not immediately more enlightening if you do click through either, except in the most general terms - some issue with changes to their Ts & Cs is alluded to in the first paragraph, and then there's a wall of text that probably does explain in more detail but simply didn't look like it was going to be interesting enough to bother reading.
And maybe that's the point: having just annoyed their customers, whilst they do need to communicate with and apologise to those customers - clearly the intended audience here - perhaps they don't want to kick up a massive fuss that lands on the front page of HN and other sites, and sparks a big discussion or controversy.
> When you have a headline that does not say what the actual topic is, and you are forced to click the article to find out the topic, that is called "clickbait".
I don't think it's clickbait, but it's still a poor article to link. It's a mea culpa about some kind of controversy, but that controversy isn't described in detail and you're assumed to already know what's going on.
It sounds like some TOS change about a "data enrichment" feature, but I have no idea what the issue was with that? Maybe training on that data or having data leak across customers?
as a user with some technical understanding, Hubspot is surprisingly horrible, so it could be about anything they do really
The article doesn't tell you the topic, either - saved you a click.
Star player traded to serious contender
This sounds like Claude apologizing for making a CRM.
What actually happened???
HubSpot has been building a different solution for our customers. On August 4, Contact Discovery launches — and for the first time, your team can find, verify, and add net-new contacts without ever leaving HubSpot.
To support that, we’re updating our Customer Terms of Service, Product Specific Terms, Privacy Policy, Sub-Processors Page and Data Processing Agreement, effective July 1, 2026. This post explains what’s changing and why.
The contacts you find through Contact Discovery are reliable because they’ve been checked for deliverability, accuracy, and whether that person is still at that company. You’re not buying a raw list and hoping for the best. Every contact that surfaces has been validated, and decision-makers are ranked first.
That quality is only possible because of a shared dataset. When you opt into enrichment, some of your business contact data helps keep that dataset current. Everyone who participates gets more accurate data back in return. You never pay for a contact already in your CRM, and there’s no separate contract.
These are the new leads. These are the HubSpot leads, data mined from your own HubSpot account. And to you they're gold, and you don't get them. Why? Because to give them to you is just throwing them away. They're for closers. I'd wish you all good luck, but you wouldn't know what to do with it if you got it.
ToS missteps notwithstanding, it's a bit more than your data surfaced back to you. You share your data and in return you get to share in other people's data. Fairly common community data.
Whether it's what HubSpot customers want, opt in/opt out are valid criticisms.
Just a little tip - If you can't put the context in the title, please add a comment that provides it. It's annoying to see titles without context.
As expected from "the Hub", an empty clickbaity headline, a phony "apology" to save face, etc.
Fascinatingly, the original 'mistake' post reads as very AI-generated, and this apology is significantly more human-sounding.
Possibly indicative of the lack-of-care that caused the original issue.
The apology reads extremely corporate-generic to me. Nothing of value was said in it.
Sure, but I think it's human corporate-generic, rather than AI. They put more effort in this time.
My favourite bit of it was "We did not meet the standard you expect from HubSpot" - for anyone who's had the misfortune of using HubSpot, surely they met exactly the expected standard.
I am glad they were actually paying enough attention to make these changes. They saved themselves a lot of customers by changing their policy so quickly.
Without the context this isn't very interesting
first mistake is overriding my dark reader mode.
Wir hätten klarer kommunizieren müssen, was wir vorschlugen und wie es funktionieren würde.虽然我们 always intended for enrichment to remain strictly opt-in, we should have communicated better how that opt-in works, and importantly, how you as a customer could ensure you remain in control of that choice.
When I see a random German phrase in the wild, I always think of Günther: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUYpIyWPKGk&pp=ygUOZGluZyBka...
why does your comment start in German, then go to Chinese and then Enlgish lol?
because an LLM wrote it and glitched
Well the English is a quote from the article