Ok, I'll remove you from the disingenuous. He stays though because he should definitely mention it on his CV.
> a legal degree, one-time certification, and some legal practice are kind of relevant
Yep, he's definitely probably got more standing than anonymous commenters. But that's a low bar. He didn't practice contract law (it was transactional IP) and it was 14 years ago - it's an almost certainty he isn't au fait with current contract or employment law.
> Is it your reasoned argument
I don't have one knowing nothing about US contract or employment law. My layperson viewpoint is that it's quite clear they weren't Facebook contractors in the terms of the Apple agreement.
IANAL, but I know the rough outlines of US contract and employment law as a frequent party to contracts, occasionally to disputes, and as a US person who has both contracted others and been a contract worker.
If you have a contract (which doesn't even have to be written), you're a contractor. Full stop. And, an agreement to provide payment in return for performing certain actions (like installing an app, leaving it running, answering questionnaires, maintaining confidentiality, etc) is a contract, even if it's a clickthrough agreement. Ergo, compensated research panelists are 'contractors' in the eyes of the law.
Yes, and I explicitly said I didn't have an argument but only my "layperson viewpoint".
> IANAL, but I know the rough outlines of US contract
Great. I don't care. Argue with other people about that. All I wanted to do was correct the perception that the journalist was a member of the bar and had some kind of legal standing.
But still, a legal degree, one-time certification, and some legal practice are kind of relevant, compared to anonymous commenters who are just insisting by repetition "but that's not a 'contractor'!"
Is it your reasoned argument that an individual receiving payment for services rendered to a corporation, under the terms of a mutually-agreed contract, is not a "contractor" in the eyes of the law?