Job: Website lets people gossip about bosses – now it’s no longer anonymous

Glassdoor
On this website, employees gossiped about their bosses – then it suddenly activated their real names

Which companies do you really want to work for? Glassdoor often answers this question in the USA. Protected by anonymity, the employees were able to express their opinions about their own employers. After an unannounced change, many people will regret it.

Before you start a new job or even apply, some information is worth its weight in gold. What is the mood in the company really like? What do the others earn? Which departments should you definitely avoid? In the USA you can find the answer to these questions Glassdoor. The big advantage of the site: Because you can use it anonymously, the criticism is much more honest than if you had to fear consequences. But that’s now changing: the site has started secretly collecting users’ real names in the background.

The software developer Monica first pointed this out in a blog post. She admits that she has just made a “huge mistake”. “I had to contact Glassdoor about an account issue,” she says. Her mistake: She uses an email address with her real name – and discovered it emblazoned above her account a few days ago. “Glassdoor now requires your real name. And will add it to your profile if they find out.” Her radical conclusion: “It’s time to delete the Glassdoor account and all my data there.”

Suddenly no longer completely anonymous

The change came into effect in the summer, Ars Technica found out. The reason is a takeover: Glassdoor had bought another networking app, Fishbowl, and linked the two services together in the background in the summer. The big difference between the two services: While Glassdoor could previously be used completely anonymously, Fishbone requires the account to be verified with real data. And so a real name requirement was introduced through the back door at Glassdoor.

Many users don’t notice anything about it at first. The site didn’t contact you about the name and didn’t ask for permission to use it. But if she finds out, the data in the profile is automatically linked. This was announced in a place where hardly anyone would read it: In a change to the terms of use, Glassdoor suddenly introduced a verification requirement. “When a user provides us with information, whether when logging in or uploading a resume, it is automatically stored across all Glassdoor services,” a spokesperson confirmed to Ars Technica.

Gossiping about the job: fear of the consequences

The fact that users are now panicking is entirely justified: many of the reviews from current or former workplaces on the site are extremely harsh. The superior is criticized and the incompetence of the management or the salary is openly criticized. So it’s no wonder that many users were cautious beforehand and didn’t describe their job position too precisely so as not to be indirectly recognizable.

With a real name, many now not only have to fear the loss of their job, but even legal problems due to damage to their reputation. And this was without any form of warning from Glassdoor.

Hard deletion

However, no one currently knows how specific this danger actually is. Because: So far, the real name is only added to the non-public profile. “Users can decide to continue using all services anonymously,” said the company spokesman. However, many users are already annoyed that their data is being stored at all. “You don’t need my name to be able to offer your services,” said one user on Reddit. Others confirmed that they had already deleted their accounts.

This, in turn, is not that easy: the account can only be deactivated in the settings and the data remains saved. You can only actually request the complete deletion of the data using a form.

Unsafe situation

There are several reasons why users are upset despite the supposed protection of their personal data. On the one hand, there is always the risk of a data leak on the Internet. If the data from Glassdoor or Fishbowl ended up on the Internet in one way or another, companies could quickly identify the employees who made negative comments about them online. On the other hand, there have already been attempts to force Glassdoor to release the data through lawsuits. Employees fear that if real data is now available, companies could obtain the identity of employees with a search warrant.

However, the unsolicited editing of the account is also annoying beyond the real name. Josh Simmons, a manager at a start-up, tells Ars Technica that his profile was filled with false information. “It was bizarre, I had never provided this data and it’s a pretty wild mix of data,” he reports. Glassdoor falsified the name of his employer and stated his work location as London – even though he works in California. Ultimately, Simmons also saw only one way out: Before the company falsified the data any further, he preferred to delete it.

Sources: Blog post, Ars Technica, Reddit