Zenefits vs. ADP – Dispute Regarding Data Security Leads to Lawsuit
A recent spat between HR SaaS provider Zenefits and ADP has hit the mainstream news cycle. When you look at the claims of each party, it seems like the classic he-said, she-said type of misunderstanding.
From each parties perspective, here is what they are claiming:
Zenefits says that ADP rescinded on its promise to provide access to a 3rd party API when discussions seemingly ended more than a year ago. In order to get around the third party API requirement, Zenefits allegedly created some sort of screen scraping software hosted in the AWS cloud. This software logs into a person’s ADP account and grabs personally identifiable information (PII).
ADP says that Zenefits constitutes less than 1% of all the customers who are enrolled with ADP, however, ADP is alleging that Zenefits’ cloud based scraping software had been responsible for up to 25% of the total traffic on ADP’s servers. Zenefits denies these claims. ADP mentions that this method of grabbing personal identifiable information is insecure, which is why they have locked out Zenefits from accessing data from ADP.
Zenefits has protested ADP as being a bully of sorts, trying to portray ADP as a company that feels threatened by Zenefit’s sudden rise to prominence. You can read more about Zenefits’ latest round of funding and our Geek of the Week column that recently focused on Zenefits CEO Parker Conrad.
In efforts to publically protest ADP, Zenefits recently launched a Twitter hashtag campaign and a Change.org petition in order to regain access to data hosted within ADP’s servers.
ADP, one of the largest payroll vendors in the United States, swiftly responded with a defamation lawsuit, alleging all sorts of misdeeds and wrong doings by Zenefits.
What’s your opinion on the Zenefits vs. ADP story? Tell us in the comments below.
