> If I ran a startup into the ground I would never ever betray my customers by selling their data!

When you run a business into the ground, some decisions about what you sell get taken over by courts, at the direction of your creditors.

When you trust your data with a company, you're not just trusting its ethics, you're trusting its long term viability too.

> When you run a business into the ground, some decisions about what you sell get taken over by courts, at the direction of your creditors.

This is true, but a lot of this "story" still seems strange, especially in light of the fact that all of the sites that appear to be associated with Cheung's new venture have been taken offline.

There are a number of well-funded players in this space, some of which might have an interest in acquiring Homejoy's data. How did the twenty-something co-founder of the failed business come to acquire the data? Did outside investors provide funding for the new venture and its acquisition of the data? Were any of those investors also investors in Homejoy? Why weren't former Homejoy customers simply informed that another company had acquired their information in an honest, transparent fashion (the way most companies handle transactions of this nature)?

It's worth pointing out that the email Cheung sent to former Homejoy customers about FlyMaids stated that FlyMaids "work[s] with Homejoy's best cleaners."

If that is true, it would appear this new venture is essentially just Homejoy reincarnated, begging questions about Homejoy's liabilities. Assuming the lawsuits against Homejoy haven't settled, I'd imagine the attorneys behind those lawsuits might have an interest in what's going on.

Not to mention the people that the site content was stolen from.

To me, this sounds like "As founder, I had access to all of Homejoy's data, so I just took it with me."

The founder says he acquired the data through an assignment for the benefit of creditors. I'm not an expert in ABCs, but my understanding is that the assignee in this process has a fiduciary duty to creditors and therefore must attempt to maximize the liquidation price of the company's assets. So I'm still curious as to how the twenty-something co-founder of the failed business acquired the data.

That aside, if we assume the data was acquired appropriately, it makes the questionable behavior[1] all the more baffling.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10468700

You're trusting that they or their acquirers will honor the contracts that they have with you. In the case of Homejoy, my assumption is that the claims/promises they made constitute a contract with their users that limits their ability to make use of your data outside the described scope. IANAL, but I think there's a reason we don't regularly hear about things like this - it's actually hard to do without getting sued.

Truth be told, they've probably got more experience than anybody else to make Homejoy 2.0 a much better product.

No they don't.

Why? Because the two thing you need to run a professional housecleaning service are access to people's houses and their credit card numbers. Maintaining this access demands far more judgement, care, and integrity than Aaron Cheung is ever likely to have.

A contract requires mutual consideration. Whatever someone says in their dying breath doesn't constitute a contract. A last will, perhaps, but not a contract. (To my knowledge, estate law does not apply to corporations.)

The consideration provided by HomeJoy's customers was, naturally, payment.

Past consideration is not consideration for a new offer.

No court or creditor can force you to rip off a competitor's site, only to festoon your version with fake coverage from the New York Times.