In non-tech fields this sort of thing is much more common and, at least when I went through school in the States, the fact that you might have to work an unpaid internship was a reality we all accepted (the cultural perception may have moved on). It's not illegal but it's possible very few HR person would allow such a posting - internships aren't profitable for companies, so most of the unpaid internships were teensy companies that hadn't realized that their interns would actually cost the company money regardless of the salary.
1. Here's the DOL's Fact Sheet including the seven evaluation metrics: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-interns...
2. Which is it's own problem - working an internship at Google is basically having Game of Thrones on your IMDB page and the FAANG companies do exploit this perceived prestige.
I'd rather have Alien, but each to their own.
Unless this claim is scoped to the tech industry, it's absolutely wrong. Frankly I don't know the actual legal status but it's standard practice in a lot of industries, esp. things like publishing.
That said, the interpretation changed some in 2015 and again n 2018. Here is the Department of Labor's "test" on whether or not you can provide unpaid internships: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-interns...
That's federal, but some states have stricter laws.
> Unpaid internships are legal if the intern is the "primary beneficiary" of the arrangement. This is determined by the seven-point Primary Beneficiary Test.
https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15161-are-unpaid-internshi...
When I mentor college students, the only times we hear about unpaid internships are:
1) Unfunded wannabe startups or small family businesses who don't understand what they need, but they assume they can convince some naive kid to do it for free. No one with actual skills or prospects takes these jobs. Job boards remove these posts if they're moderated.
2) Students who struggle to get a normal internship, so their dad/uncle/cousin/neighbor lets them do an unpaid "internship" off the books at their company to get something to put on their resume. They don't really do much work, but now they can put a line on their resume and claim some work experience for the next interview.