22 ms·

Glassdoor not so anonymous

• pyuser583 4y ago
  If you want to fix your Glassdoor review, it’s really simple. As soon as you onboard employees, pressure then to leave Glassdoor reviews. Since they just started, they obviously approve, albeit ignorantly.
  • mytailorisrich 4y ago
    Some companies do ask current employees (albeit informally a select trusted few) to leave glowing reviews in order to bury bad ones and to give a PR boost during hiring sprees.
  • Jaruzel 4y ago
    In a previous employment, when I logged into the internal HR portal on my first day, there was a 'performance target' already set on my profile, which said: Create account on Glassdoor, and leave a review. On. My. First. Day. It did not bode well for the rest of my employment there.
• paulcnichols 4y ago
  • eointierney 4y ago
    Web3! For people who can't count up to four but intend to make profit off those who can't count up to two! Chain!
    • walrus01 4y ago
  • avgDev 4y ago
    I think maybe NFTs or blockchain solution. We could additionally try AI(if statements). /s
• quickthrower2 4y ago
  This is where web3 might finally have some use. Truely anonymous decentralised network for reviewing companies. No entity to subpoena and no server logs or user data anyway if they could.
  • Beltalowda 4y ago
    It will be useless due to spam, unreasonably disgruntled employees posting lies, forced or fraudulent positive reviews, and even outright scams ("pay up or we will post a negative review every week"), etc. I wish it weren't so, but I'm afraid that will be the reality of it.
    • Godel_unicode 4y ago
      All attempts to sell people on a truly anonymous system should begin with an explanation of the plan to not become 4chan.
      • quickthrower2 4y ago
        I thought a little about this. While onchain you cannot censor it, the “view” created for convenience on web2 could just ignore sufficiently flagged responses. This would still generally allow anonymity. Of course you could also have anonymity on a traditional platform by not requiring people to sign in with usernames but use a private key instead. So just use that part of web3 but no blockchain storage.
        • Beltalowda 4y ago
          How will you prevent a company flagging unflattering reviews in an effort to get them hidden (companies will pop up offering these kind of services, employing multiple computers, botnets, etc.)?
          • aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
            How does Twitter? Answer: they don't. If it's a big enough problem, it's noticed and addressed.
• Mandatum 4y ago
  Glassdoor has posted a notice on ZURU's page regarding this: https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Reviews/ZURU-Reviews-E2286297.htm https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Reviews/ZURU-Reviews-E2286297.h... It appears a few other companies are doing this too, including Kraken (https://www.kraken.com/ https://www.kraken.com/) as you can see here: https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Overview/Working-at-Kraken-Digital-Asset-Exchange-EI_IE938667.11,40.htm https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Overview/Working-at-Kraken-Digi... EDIT: If anyone from Glassdoor is reading this, please advise on a way to either unlink my profile from my identity - or remove my profile and contact information altogether. I believe GDPR may provide some assistance here.
  • ohazi 4y ago
    > Glassdoor Alert: Employer Legal Action > This employer has taken legal action against reviewers and/or Glassdoor for the reviews that have appeared on this profile. Please exercise your best judgment when evaluating this employer. Learn more about Glassdoor Alerts. i.e. "FFS stop writing reviews, but assume the worst is true and stay the hell away from these clowns"
    • 300bps 4y ago
      Wow. That statement is the worst kind of review any potential employee could ever read.
      • lostcolony 4y ago
        Yeah. Definitely Streisand effected themselves. Wonder if they can sue their own legal counsel for causing themselves so much monetary loss (given that's the grounds they're using to de-anonymize the reviewers)?
        • mlyle 4y ago
          Yah. The reviews didn't even look that bad. Nothing like getting lots of press for suing critical employees to improve your rep.
• pickovven 4y ago
  A decent outcome here would be if Glassdoor revealed all employers that attempt to go after former employees with alerts like the current one on the Zuru page.
  • tomc1985 4y ago
    They do, at least in some cases. Another comment here suggests the following Google query: "Glassdoor Alert: Employer Legal Action" site:glassdoor.com Which does indeed highlight many other companies that have taken legal action against their reviewers.
  • colinmhayes 4y ago
    Glassdoors business model is selling the ability to take down bad reviews. Why would they out their customers?
    • bogwog 4y ago
      If that were true, then it would seem their asking price is greater than the cost and risk of de-anonymizing and suing former employees.
      • metadat 4y ago
        Ego+Pride is a helluva drug.
    • pcurve 4y ago
      You can pay them to remove bad reviews?
    • crummy 4y ago
      How do I pay Glassdoor to take down a review? Is that on their website somewhere?
      • IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
        presumably you simoly wait for someone from the glassdoor sales team to contact you , the owner. they will present is as a review optimization strategy. this is how yelp did it back in the day. i dont know if glassdor does or did it, just pointing out other review sites did do it and never posted it on their "pricing" or "services" page for employers...
• PradeetPatel 4y ago
  It appears that they have won the lawsuit against Glassdoor. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/kiwi-toy-giant-zuru-wins-court-battle-to-identify-and-sue-aggrieved-ex-workers/D2JIMYXKBVOCROAUSJTDOSTS6U/ https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/kiwi-toy-giant-zuru-wins... Perhaps this event will send a chilling message to would-be whistle-blowers...
  • Pokepokalypse 4y ago
    It's a warning to turbulent priests everywhere.
    • ls15 4y ago
      It's a reminder to use encryption and the darknet for any leaks.
• erulabs 4y ago
  It’s amazing that companies with billions of dollars of revenue make such poor moves. All I think when I see a story like this is “well I guess there isn’t much competition in NZ toy companies”.
• gruez 4y ago
  >Glassdoor’s FAQ goes into a little more detail about how they will defend user anonymity. They know this is vital their success: If glassdoor cares so much about anonymity, why didn't they engineer their site in such a way that prevents them from being able to deanonymize reviewers? For instance, not keeping identifying user details after they have been verified?
  • Someone1234 4y ago
    Devil's advocate: Spam and abuse are ongoing problems, and are often the answer to "why we cannot have nice things?"
  • KevinGlass 4y ago
    Like most things in the modern world, it's built on bullshit and hopes that no one notices. In this case someone noticed and going to clean house.
  • kelnos 4y ago
    Probably because doing so is hard. You not only have to verify that a review is coming from an actual current or former employee, but then you have to ensure that the same employee cannot write multiple reviews. If you discard all links between a reviewer account and a review, how do you do that? I imagine there's some sort of zero-knowledge magic cryptographic thing you can do (or maybe something simpler, like a... Bloom filter?), but perhaps Glassdoor didn't want to go for the effort and expense to implement it. Just goes to show you, unless you can prove anonymity client-side, never assume you're anonymous on the internet, anywhere.
    • SkittyDog 4y ago
      > You not only have to verify that a review is coming from an actual current or former employee, but then you have to ensure that the same employee cannot write multiple reviews. If you discard all links between a reviewer account and a review, how do you do that? Just FYI, Glassdoor does NOT try to prove that reviewers are current or former employees. Anybody can post claiming to be an employee, and Glassdoor will accept their review.
• croes 4y ago
  >Zuru hasn't simply alleged that it suffered a loss; Zuru’s cofounders declared, under penalty of perjury, that because of the negative reviews, Zuru had to spend more money to recruit job candidates for a particular position.” Does Zuru have proof it's because of negative reviews and not other causes?
  • kelnos 4y ago
    Yeah, this line almost made me laugh out loud. "We promise that this happened and these evil reviewers are why! Believe us!" Um... no? I don't. At all.
  • SkittyDog 4y ago
    Their proof (or lack thereof) would generally be evaluated at the trial stage. This is a pre-trial procedure, so it's mostly take at face value. If another party so moves, they could ask the court to stop the plaintiff, and the judge will make a decision. But that's not automatic--somebody has to specifically ask for it.
    • burkaman 4y ago
      You're right, but this is still a very funny sentence that only a lawyer could take seriously. "Zuru didn't just allege it, they DECLARED it!"
      • bigiain 4y ago
        Sounds very SovCit
        • SkittyDog 4y ago
          I think your inference may be backwards... Sovereign Citizen types sound like this because they're aping "legalese" in an attempt to sound authoritative to ignorant people. But this weird, kinda archaic, jargony, overly-specific English is just how regular motions are written, by real lawyers in regular courts. (And yes, it does sound funny, if you're not used to reading/writing it.)
• walrus01 4y ago
  Does Glassdoor actually have any business operations or webservers in NZ that would be subject to this order if it was issued from a court in NZ? Since when does a NZ order apply to a non NZ company. For example, American media regularly publishes the names of persons charged with crimes in Canada where the name may be banned from publication by a Canadian court. It's a first amendment thing. If US companies start obeying orders like this, how is it any different from getting a court order from a "totally neutral" court in Hong Kong, actually controlled by beijing, to de-anonymize the users of an american-based web service. Looking at the details, it appears that they were sued in a us court in California, so the order does apply.
  • gruez 4y ago
    > Does Glassdoor actually have any business operations or webservers in NZ that are subject to this order? The court order itself is from a california court. They can't just tell that court to fuck off.
    • lotsofpulp 4y ago
      But why is a US court telling Glassdoor to do something because of a New Zealand law?
      • zaroth 4y ago
        It’s a great question. I don’t know the answer, but I have a sneaking suspicion. Something something Kim Dotcom? There must be some treaty…
      • roywiggins 4y ago
        Congress already passed a law to prevent foreign libel judgements (well, ones which wouldn't pass 1st amendment muster), from being enforceable by US courts. And now we just have US judges deciding they should apply NZ law without applying the 1st Amendment? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPEECH_Act?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPEECH_Act?wprov=sfla1
• pcurve 4y ago
  I read through all the reviews. https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Reviews/ZURU-Reviews-E2286297_P7.htm?filter.iso3Language=eng https://www.glassdoor.com.au/Reviews/ZURU-Reviews-E2286297_P... I don't see anything out of the ordinary, and there are definitely some common threads amongst negative reviews. Wouldn't they have to prove the allegations are false?
  • gruez 4y ago
    >Wouldn't they have to prove the allegations are false? That's mostly a US thing. England and many former english colony countries have quite liberal (illiberal?) libel laws that puts the onus of the person making the claim to prove it's true. >defamatory statement is presumed to be false, unless the defendant can prove its truth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law
• synicalx 4y ago
  Why you should never leave Glassdoor reviews using; - Your real name - Your real email address - Your real salary and job title - Your normal vocabulary and idioms - Any of your devices (as in, go to an internet cafe or something) They can deanonymize as much as they like all they're going to find is that "dbcooper42069[at]hotmail", using non-region specific language, took a very dim view of company X's management style and pay rates.
  • JadeNB 4y ago
    > - Your normal vocabulary and idioms I think that this one is way harder to avoid than you might think, short of having someone else write the review for you (which might not be a bad idea!).
    • kadoban 4y ago
      You might be able to get by with something like throwing it through Google Translate to a different language, then back, and then fix only anything that's _unreadably_ awful. Might be too blunt of a tool though. The other thing I can think to try to do would just be avoid any complete sentences, just give short bulletpoints or something. Resticting the amount of text should make it harder to get anything like a real match.
    • synicalx 4y ago
      Yeah it's not easy, having someone else write it like you said is probably the easiest way. In a few reviews I've left (using different accounts etc for each one to avoid fingerprinting!) I've written the review myself, changed it to a formal register, thesaurus-ed a few words, and also threw in a few red herrings to make which team I was from appear ambiguous (for example, whine about sales tooling/CRM when you're an engineer that has nothing to do with sales).
  • absove 4y ago
    I've never used glassdoor myself, but don't you need to use your company email while leaving the review to prove you actually work there, so leaving an anonymous review isn't even possible? Why would anybody use glassdoor if that's the case?
• braingenious 4y ago
  I’ve never used Glassdoor, so it’s a big surprise that they collect and retain identity information in the first place. I would never, ever provide my real name while talking about my previous employers, even if I was told that I would remain “anonymous”
  • onelovetwo 4y ago
    I'm curious does it matter if its a previous employer? what could they possibly do?
    • braingenious 4y ago
      I live in the US, where people and corporations are notoriously litigious and I’ve worked at some terrible places. For example, I once had a coworker that would openly crush up and snort various pills between calls while fundraising for one of the two main political parties. This was not an issue for management. I would never post [name of that employer] from any account that could possibly be attached to my name anywhere.
      • metadat 4y ago
        That doesn't sound great but was this person actually doing anything to interfere with you other than existing in your presence? Just curious, and I agree it's unprofessional. I can be quite judgemental, though.
        • braingenious 4y ago
          Yes. A guy railing a line of Concerta right next to me while I was on a call loudly enough for the possible donor to hear and ask about it was a problem for me.
          • krageon 4y ago
            Why would a possible donor ask about a noise that sounds extremely similar to someone blowing their nose? This comes off as moralising for the sake of moralising, nothing actually harmful has happened.
• NamTaf 4y ago
  Does Glassdoor even have a legal presence in NZ? If so, why? If not, why are they even bothered by this? Could they theoretically not just play hardball, ignore the NZ courts entirely on the basis that they have no legal entity within NZ, and see what happens? Are there cross-border legal agreements that give the NZ courts any teeth? Or would it come down to NZ having to mandate that all ISPs block Glassdoor within NZ?
  • gene91 4y ago
    This order is from a California court.
  • IG_Semmelweiss 4y ago
    IANAL - you instinct is good generally but you missed a key point. Zuru is suing in CA to compel glassdoor to produce information. Zuru is not suing glassdoor for breaking NZ law in CA. That would make this case go away very quickly. Instead, Zuru is saying they intend to sue NZ individuals in NZ, but in order to sue, they need info from US based glassdoor. there may be some kind of cross border agreement to facilitate information between NZ and US. Politics aside, i dont know if a US company could be compelled by a US court to produce information to sue chinese or russian citizens, under those respective laws/jurisdictions?
    • NamTaf 4y ago
      Aha, thanks for that key point, that does change it a lot. I missed that this was in CA and for whatever reason assumed it was all going through the NZ courts. I am sure there is some form of cross-border agreement between NZ and the US, but I don't know any details about it.
• chaps 4y ago
  Once had a contract where my client wanted me to do "security work", which was initially meant to be for pentesting their clients, but it turned into me building their wifi auth system. At some point in the gig, one of their clients went to them asking them if it was possible to de-anonymize someone glassdoor review since someone still-employed worked with them. They then went to me to see if I could do it for them. They didn't clarifywhy they went to me, but I legitimately think they wanted me to "hack" glassdoor. I told them in no uncertain terms that I wouldn't do it and they backed off. A bit later they fired the employee.. I didn't hear how they found the person, but it really spoke to the lengths that some organizations will go to burn down the lives of those who speak up. Use this google search to find more companies that do it: "Glassdoor Alert: Employer Legal Action" site:glassdoor.com https://www.glassdoor.ca/Reviews/Employee-Review-Media-Consulta-RVW23674692.htm https://www.glassdoor.ca/Reviews/Canidae-Reviews-E845482.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Echelon-Environmental-EI_IE1069898.11,32.htm https://www.glassdoor.ca/Reviews/Canidae-Reviews-E845482.htm https://fr.glassdoor.ca/Pr%C3%A9sentation/Travailler-chez-Echelon-Environmental-EI_IE1069898.16,37.htm https://www.glassdoor.ca/Reviews/Employee-Review-BW-Legal-RVW58014087.htm
  • Mandatum 4y ago
    DNS records of your VPN or corporate work station would be pretty easy. You can line then up with when the review was posted. Then investigate their workstation more "thoroughly".
    • chaps 4y ago
      Pretty uncool to give employers ideas on how to force their IT staff to rat out employees who speak out. Edit: yikes, people.
      • bogwog 4y ago
        Alternatively, it's a warning to employees on how they might get caught.
        • 4y ago
• dylan604 4y ago
  Would these companies have a case if an employee left refusing to sign the paper work agreeing to not talk shit? One company I left tied their severance package to a signature on that kind of agreement.
  • willcipriano 4y ago
    They would have to prove the statement is false in court and that they suffered harm due to it. Otherwise it's protected free speech.
    • mypalmike 4y ago
      That depends on jurisdiction. Not all countries protect truthful disparaging public remarks.
      • willcipriano 4y ago
        You are right. I should have added it only applies to countries that have free speech.
  • rodgerd 4y ago
    They aren't planning on suing for a breach of NDA. They're planning on suing under defamation law, which alone will cost the former employees tens of thousands, if not hundreds, to defend; if they can't defend their case - and as the article says, opinion is not automatically protected under New Zealand law - it appears that they will be suing for "increased recruitment costs", which sounds like it could be construed to run to arbitarily large numbers. The point is to terrorise anyone out of criticising them, ever.
    • dylan604 4y ago
      They have 5000+ employees. I don't think their recruiting efforts have been hindered. The CEO's decision to pursue this has a larger negative effect than the comments on Glassdoor. I'm evidence as I had never heard of this company, do not peruse Glassdoor, but now I know this company's name and that the CEO is a tosser.
• jeandejean 4y ago
  Maybe this legal retaliation attempt speaks more than the reviews themselves...
• mattdeboard 4y ago
  a fatal double-bind for glassdoor’s prospects for continued existence imo. competitors are surely celebrating this ruling. especially those who physically cannot put anonymous commenters at risk while somehow still turning a profit without being able to traffic in tracking data.
• dadoge 4y ago
  I wouldn’t be surprised if there is lots of money to be made de-anonymizing Reddit users
• livinginfear 4y ago
  In the past I've been tempted to leave reviews for bad employers I've had. I've always come to the conclusion that the risks of doing so totally outweigh the completely minimal rewards. The risk of being deanonymised, and receiving retaliation from the company is too high. My threat model didn't include the possibility of litigation compelling the company to hand over PII. I was more concerned that I'd inadvertently betray my identity in my review. Not to mention the issues related to Glassdoor as a company, and their lack of objectivity. Why do people use their service in the first place?
  • bombcar 4y ago
    I see no reason to leave a review on basically any site for anything; but especially a bad review on something like Glassdoor, except out of some spite or something. Maybe if they paid for them.
• Mandatum 4y ago
  dang, can Nick Mowbray and Anna Mowbray, the founders of ZURU, compel News.YC to hand over my information if I wrote a poor review of their company in a scathing Tell HN?
  • siva7 4y ago
    I would hope so if your review was written in bad faith
    • ls15 4y ago
      Even if the company was Facebook?
  • metadat 4y ago
    Email hn@news.ycombinator.com if you really want to know :p
• ro_bit 4y ago
  I'm not familiar with the law here. Can Glassdoor appeal?
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• yarg 4y ago
  I just attempted to look at the reviews. There's an uncloseable pop-up telling you to log in. Normally I wouldn't bother, but curiousity got the best of me - I logged in with my Google OAuth. Not so fast - you haven't contributed to Glassdoor in the last 12 months, here's another annoying pop up and you cannot dismiss it until you do. Does anyone actually bother to use this dark pattern infused service?
  • bogwog 4y ago
    There needs to be a non-profit version of this without all the desperate bullshit.
    • b3morales 4y ago
      What chance would said non-profit have of surviving a lawsuit like this?
    • quickthrower2 4y ago
      Where “this” also refers to Facebook, Twitter, Medium, Quora, Uber, Reddit etc.....
    • cortesoft 4y ago
      Where would you get the funding for that?
  • kadoban 4y ago
    Somewhat unfortunately, yes. Those patterns are annoying and dark, but they still have some good data. Which is probably the only reason they get away with it.
  • Frotag 4y ago
    First time viewers can see a page freely. So all you have to do is clear your cookies after every page load and you wont be bothered. lol. But yeah, posting a review also gets rid of the banner permanently.
    • 4y ago
• cdolan 4y ago
  Glassdoor has systematically taken down negative reviews for companies for years. I can’t say I love any of the “board” sites who engage in this type of product, and that includes Yelp, Google Places, etc
  • 0xmohit 4y ago
    > Glassdoor has systematically taken down negative reviews for companies for years. For a fee, of course :)
    • cdolan 4y ago
      I have never seen proof of this but that is my belief
• Tagbert 4y ago
  Contact us page for Zuru Toys. I just sent them a short message explaining that previously I was not aware of their company but now this issue is the only thing that I know about them and it is not a good look. https://zurutoys.co/contact/ https://zurutoys.co/contact/
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • aaron695 4y ago
• siva7 4y ago
  Who tells us that these negative reviews are always true and not posted by some disgruntled or mentally ill employee or even someone who never worked there? I know it’s easy to side on the negative reviewer side on glassdoor but it’s an anonymous place and the employer has almost no chance of fighting back.
  • xigency 4y ago
    Because a billion-dollar toy company headquartered in Shenzhen, China that has yacht parties needs the legal justice system to protect its good name by doxxing job reviews is pretty transparent on the face of it.
  • mytailorisrich 4y ago
    Yes, we don't know. But we also don't know whether the positive reviews are genuine or organised by employer (I've seen it).
• Zamicol 4y ago
  This is why we need zero-knowledge proofs for these sorts of products.
• olliej 4y ago
  I mean if the reviews violate NDAs why shouldn't they be able to? If they don't violate NDAs and the allegations aren't true, why shouldn't they be able to? Finally, if Glassdoor is anonymous, why would they have any records of anyone who posts a review? If you want to claim some content has an anonymous author, you, the company hosting the content, cannot have any ability to identify the author. Otherwise all this "anonymous" info is a hack, malicious employee, or lawsuit away from no longer being anonymous.
• surement 4y ago
  This is interesting but a more accurate title would be "New Zealand law allows corporations to sue Glassdoor for user data." As the article notes: > statements of “pure opinion” are protected by the First Amendment in America. But New Zealand doesn’t have this. Statements of opinion are not categorically protected. That said, the warning that Glassdoor adds to the pages of companies that do this has to be the biggest warning not to go work for these companies; definitely a bigger deal than a couple of bad reviews.
  • pcurve 4y ago
    Certainly makes you wonder about their current stellar rating.
  • phoenixreader 4y ago
    Actually, this subpoena is possible because of this US statute: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1782 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1782 Edit: there is even a Wiki page for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_1782_Discovery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_1782_Discovery
    • bagacrap 4y ago
      upvoted for relevance, but really it's NZ law that fails to sufficiently protect free speech
      • hgsgm 4y ago
      • amadeuspagel 4y ago
        US law could and should protect freedom of speech, even when it's not protected in other countries. If you sue a company in the US in an attempt to suppress speech that would be protected by the first amendment, US courts should reject that.
  • roywiggins 4y ago
• jackvalentine 4y ago
  The greatest thing I ever saw on Glassdoor was our company's Chief People Officer arguing with anonymous people in their reviews. It wasn't a response they were aggressively going them. That CPO soon moved on.
  • siva7 4y ago
    Arguing with anonymous people who already made their mind in a unfavourable way for you is a lost cause, not just on glassdoor but on every platform
• causality0 4y ago
  Maybe this is a foolish statement coming from my never having used Glassdoor, but why the fuck would an anonymous review website even keep PII in the first place?
  • pcurve 4y ago
    I'm guessing most they have is email address and IP?
  • bandyaboot 4y ago
    I think the workplace/company review aspect is how they market themselves, but really that’s just a small part of it. Companies are their customers, people interested in jobs are their product, so naturally they need to get as many people as possible to give them their personal information. Edit: One of the “services” they provide is the ability to add your resume. Presumably that would provide some kind of job matching benefit, but I’m not familiar with it. But, that would be one source of users’ info.
  • synicalx 4y ago
    To sell, I assume. Having a "data play" is the new hotness.
  • krageon 4y ago
    It has never been anonymous. You have to provide your information to them, which means you are identifiable.
• Mandatum 4y ago
  Turns out they're actually a HK company now https://app.companiesoffice.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/8153755/shareholdings https://app.companiesoffice.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/c.... So I guess this means HK-owned, New Zealand-headquartered, US-sales-team-based companies can now court order user information from other companies. Interesting.
  • pcurve 4y ago
    Isn't it HQ'd in HK, but still owned mostly by the founder family members?
• sergiotapia 4y ago
  Glassdoor is now a tainted site unless they are active about anonymity. Meaning, they don't even have identifying information in their database. I will tell everyone I know to stay away from this website.
• thrdbndndn 4y ago
  > As for their first point, statements of “pure opinion” are protected by the First Amendment in America. But New Zealand doesn’t have this. Statements of opinion are not categorically protected. Instead, it all comes down to “the honest-opinion defense”. This is the most surprising part of this article to me. Not the NZ one, but the US one. Does this mean you can say whatever you want in the US without risking be labeled libel? What if you're a victim of it (NOT saying in this case, but in general like personally)?
  • dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Does this mean you can say whatever you want in the US without risking be labeled libel? No. The question of whether a claim is of opinion or fact is itself an objective question of fact. “Donald Trump is an evil man” is a opinion claim, and cannot be libel. “Donald Trump murdered his bastard son” is a fact claim and could (potentially) be libel.
    • Sparkle-san 4y ago
      Something to note is that the standard for defamation is higher in the US if you're a public figure such as a politician and requires you to prove actual malice. So if someone truly believed that Hillary Clinton was part of a satanic pedophile ring and told others as such, it would be almost impossible to successfully sue them.
      • dllthomas 4y ago
        Though note that the legal use of the term "actual malice" isn't quite what one might expect from the plain English.
  • cortesoft 4y ago
    First amendment rights are pretty sacred here. Generally, yes, you can say whatever you want without LEGAL consequences. For a defamation case to succeed in the US, the accuser has to prove that a statement was made that a reasonable person would interpret as a statement of fact. That means that something like "zuru is the worst place to work in the world!" would not put the person at risk of losing a defamation case, because "worst place in the world" is subjective, and no reasonable person would think it is an objective fact. If they said something like "zuru management ate my babies!".... well, that still wouldn't get them in trouble because it is so obviously not true that no reasonable person would think it was a statement of fact. If they said, "zuru didn't pay me my last paycheck," well then you might be at risk for defamation if it turns out they did actually pay you (the truth is always an absolute defense in the US, so you can't get in trouble for saying something that is true) Now, even if it wasn't true, the accuser still has to prove that the person either KNEW it wasn't true, or completely disregarded whether it was true or not when they made the statement. It is hard to get someone in trouble for what they write or say in the US.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• trhway 4y ago
  The US court deciding under New Zealand law is bad, very bad: "Here, then, the question under New Zealand law ..." The day the courts here decide to pay attention to say the Russian or Saudi laws a lot of people would get in a lot of trouble.
• mmaunder 4y ago
  Giving a company your real identity and trusting them to keep you anonymous isn’t a good idea. Either keep yourself anonymous online using your own open source toolset, or consider yourself identified when doing anything.
• batch12 4y ago
  A site that promises anonymity without ensuring that compelling identifying data is technically impossible is unfortunate. They are one good breach away from ruining many lives.
• kornhole 4y ago
  My learning is that we should never trust any site that says a form is anonymous. Use TOR and a disposable email alias to create account. If they have anything that blocks using either, don't participate if you want to be anonymous.
• spookierookie 4y ago
  I expect the same thing to happen to thelayoff as well.
• nemo44x 4y ago
  Sad New Zealand doesn’t have freedom of speech. Especially odd as our western media fawns over their police state and tyrannical government. This was never mentioned though.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • flog 4y ago
    NZ is very well regarded for freedoms, literally topping the list https://freedomhouse.org/country/new-zealand/freedom-world/2021 https://freedomhouse.org/country/new-zealand/freedom-world/2...
    • Mandatum 4y ago
      Australia and New Zealand are near the top on that list. Libel and defamation is a very commonly sought after legal means of silencing an organisation, entity or person. In Australia it's been weaponised by politicians already: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/24/world/australia/defamation-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/24/world/australia/defamatio... Yes, both countries are places you can raise a family, start a business, walk down the street without getting shot (at least it's very, very unlikely) - you can watch anything (provided it hasn't been censored which has laxed over the years), but you really, really can't say what you want about anyone. There's a very well-known security specialist who's sued multiple boutique, small-time consultancies and individuals for defamation of his character. He was called a charlatan. This is what it's like on a small-scale, you can't even talk about an individual at local conferences in case they're recorded, because you'll be taken to court (and have to spend 10's of thousands of dollars defending yourself).
      • metadat 4y ago
        Yikes, sounds like a manipulators fantasy.
• lifeisstillgood 4y ago
  Glassdoor has a paradox at its heart. Yes we all want to have honest reviews of corporate culture, and anonymity is probably the only way to get that. Except that how does anyone trust an anonymous post ? The only way to get around this is some impossible to imagine global regulatory chnage where companies may never take action against negative non-anonymous postings. I am not sure how to overcome this massive information asymmetry that corporations have against us
• TheBlight 4y ago
  It's generally a safer bet than not to assume everything you post on the internet can/will be de-anonymized.
• vishnugupta 4y ago
  I operate on principle that any site that asks you to create login is not anonymous.
• underwater 4y ago
  I'd not heard of Zuru before. Turns out they make tons of cheap plastic crap that makes Happy Meal toys look well made. Their main brands are chinzy collectable toys that combine gambling with too many layers of plastic wrapping, Mini Brandz (because having kids collect mini plastic versions of Heinz and Miracle Whip isn't weird), and Bunch O Balloons (the ultimate in single-use plastic).
  • Hallucinaut 4y ago
    Yup you've got it. I believe one of the brothers bought the compound in NZ north of Auckland that Kim Dotcom lived in (and was raised in iirc). https://businessdesk.co.nz/article/the-life/my-net-worth-nick-mowbray-co-founder-and-director-zuru-toy-company-and-zuru-edge https://businessdesk.co.nz/article/the-life/my-net-worth-nic...
• mvkel 4y ago
  This is the reality of "anonymity" on the internet. Whatever promises to be anonymous today will invariably, inevitably, become reconstituted in the long-term.
• b33j0r 4y ago
  Very uncool. I’m going to comment on the mentality of using glassdoor instead. I’ve used it to gauge the industry many times, research companies a few times. I think I’ve only ever left feedback myself once, and it was positive. But I never had an actual expectation of total privacy. I figure you could piece identities together based on the posting date alone, especially if it is negative If you’re an engineer worth hiring, you know that this layer of anonymity is just to prevent it from showing up on your grandma’s linkedin feed; or in a more paranoid way, your vengeful ex-boss easily googling your comments. If someone really wants to find you, of course they will. I take a bit of a riskier tack. I’m usually just me… we’ll see how it goes in the end
• deweywsu 4y ago
• netheril96 4y ago
  I don't understand why people ever trust the anonymity of Glassdoor. They have neither technical guarantees (e.g. zero knowledge cryptography) nor contractual guarantees (e.g. you can sue for damages if they fail to protect your identity).
• lopatin 4y ago
  Would a blockchain based Glassdoor alternative make sense? You can't sue a blockchain, and if they do somehow, they're not going to ban the entire blockchain in the whole country just because it provides anonymous reviews.
  • paranoidrobot 4y ago
    The issue is not that Glassdoor is being sued, the issue is that there is a company who wants to obtain the identities of those using Glassdoor to make comments about the company. Most people use Blockchain through established services such as Coinbase -- Coinbase, and most other legitimate services like this must comply with KYC rules. So instead of suing "a blockchain", they'd demand the identity of the wallet holder from Coinbase. I can't see how going to a blockchain resolves any of these issues, but perhaps you could elaborate?
    • aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
      > Most people use Blockchain through established services Source
  • philliphaydon 4y ago
    Why is the solution always “blockchain”. Blockchain doesn’t solve any real existing problem.
    • aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
      Assuming we ever come to a consensus on a master chain or two (ETH? BTC?), that shit is very valuable! A decentralized historical record, of any kind or quality, is something of dreams...
• anothernewdude 4y ago
  My honest opinion is that Zuru sounds like exactly the sort of shit employer that the comments on Glassdoor make it out to be. Can they, in pursuing legal options against their employees prove the employees correct?
• nebezb 4y ago
  In 2016 I left a very scathing, and very truthful, of my current employer on Glassdoor a couple of weeks before deciding to quit. Two weeks later, Glassdoor sends me an email notifying me that the employer is pursuing legal action and I have two options: 1) delete the review, or 2) stand by the review if it's true and, when it comes down to it, my identity may need to be revealed in court when necessary. That was my catalyst to quit. I stood by the review and Glassdoor notified me that the employer pulled back on the legal action. My review is still there. And Glassdoor did their best to not reveal my identity under the threat of legal action -- not until absolutely necessary.
  • exodust 4y ago
    Does Glassdoor require verified ID or something to sign up? Why don't people simply use a VPN and appropriate email to sign up and leave reviews?
    • heavyset_go 4y ago
      Try to register an email address using a host that won't have you flagged as a malicious user should you use an account with that host to sign up for major company's services like Glassdoor. It's virtually impossible to use Tor to register an email address without activating JavaScript, and the email hosts that allow it are very sketchy, and my personal suspicions are that many of them are blatant honeypots.
      • yieldcrv 4y ago
        Both Whonix and Tails are okay for the javascript attack vector. Only TorBrowser by itself got escaped via JS.
        • yieldcrv 4y ago
          (even then I only sparingly allow browser javascript on Whonix or Tails)
      • exodust 4y ago
• coding123 4y ago
  It's also getting a LOT harder to get a totally alter-ego email address that's not connected to you. They want a working phone number now. And hardly any of the "temp SMS" providers work for them - all blocked. I figure at this point I will need to literally buy a burner phone with cash if I wanted to create some identity not connected to myself online.
• yieldcrv 4y ago
  Now wait for Blind app to get ordered to reveal the same, or it gets leaked in general. Blind is more fun as they have a habit of forcing you to use your work email for "verification". They let other people on Blind too, but conveniently use that as a reason to kick them off if they say anything controversial.
• citizenpaul 4y ago
  Ive never posted on glassdoor because its basically impossible to be anonymous. The date of employment alone probably can narrow down to a handful of people for almost any position. Any mid or high level job you might as well just post under your name. There simply are too few people that have ever had your job and its only a matter of a bit of work to figure out who you are. I wonder what the most common job by a single company in the world is? Amazon warehouse worker? Even if a few million people had that job I bet any HN data scientist could deanonomize almost every review.
• can16358p 4y ago
  Why don't they make the whole process anonymous? After verifying that you work for a company, why don't they physically destroy everything that could be used to de-anonymize you, leaving with only some kind of public key and a proof of that you work for company X? For the legal part I think there were some countries (IIRC Sweden) that doesn't require to keep any logs so that they can move operations there with an owned company and legally anonymize users. I know it's much easier written here on HN than actually done, but that should be the intention: anonymous by design ground-up. // edit: fixed "do" to "don't" on first line
  • sjamaan 4y ago
    That's a technologist's typical reaction. However, this is not a technical problem. In reality, if Glassdoor did something like that it's just going to increase the likelyhood of getting targeted directly for libel. Even if someone actually worked for a company, it doesn't mean their statements about it are true. Someone might be disgruntled for a variety of reasons and slander the company, in which case it would be proper to sue in order for the review to be taken down. The social issue here seems to be that there probably are more companies doing this for "revenge" purposes than for legitimately taking down slander.
    • can16358p 4y ago
      Actually the technical aspect is the implementation details. If this is a social "problem", then the problem is Glassdoor's existence in the first place. Since it exists (whether such a service itself existing is a problem or not is out of the scope here) technical implementation is just a way of making the service work as intended (e.g. Providing anonymity to the users).
    • overgard 4y ago
      Counterpoint: I use a VPN for anonymity and/or for safety on public wifi. One of the key features of the VPN is they don't keep logs. I'm not personally doing anything illegal or immoral, but the last thing I would want is a VPN company having a log of all my internet activity. Glassdoor's entire value proposition is anonymity. The best way to respond to a subpoena, IMO, is to make it very clear that they have no way to know. Of course that might mean more legal action directed directly against them, but to me that's a cost of doing business as there is no business if people stop trusting Glassdoor to protect their identity.
• alkonaut 4y ago
  Why would Glassdoor keep this information? And why would they say they kept it rather than saying they had already deleted it? Regardless, they need to just delete it now and say they lost the information, and risk the wrath of the NZ legal system rather than risking never getting a review again.
• ken47 4y ago
  This is the worst kind of publicity for ZURU. They thought it was difficult to hire employees because of a handful of critical reviews on Glassdoor? It's about to get a lot harder. The company should have spent those extra resources researching how to make their employees happier (and hence, more productive).
  • enriquto 4y ago
    This. If the names of the employees become known, they should rise to be heroes of the workers movement, in parallel with a massive boycott of zuru!
  • pygy_ 4y ago
    Yup, this is the Streisand effect in full swing.
• einpoklum 4y ago
  If a formal legal-entity organization keeps your personal data, non-anonymized, then the those world states it operates in can be assumed to have access to the data. And then it is a question of what private corporations can get the state to provide them with - officially or unofficially.
• donkarma 4y ago
  so when is the Tor site coming out?
• Linda703 4y ago
  [dead]
• NKosmatos 4y ago
  If I were the Glassdoor IT admin, I would give out silly names with false IPs. The best solution is to have zero knowledge (delete all info that can identify a user), but the second best thing is to have double logs. A real one (internal use only) and a false one (for legal usage only). I know it goes against the moral/legal sense, but hey we're living in strange times and the best thing is not to go against multi bilion companies that can force you to do anything they want. Who from the court or Zuru (or any other "bad" company) can say if the reviews by bill brown with IP 123.124.125.126 or john james with IP 132.133.134.135 are real or not ;-)
  • Ikatza 4y ago
    That would be illegal and prone to surface at one point or another, the best policy is to not keep logs on any service that touts itself as anonymous.
• bayareabadboy 4y ago
  I’m glad people are finally seeing through glassdoor
• noob_07 4y ago
  I don't really understand how this helps that company. This will probably make a lot more people stay really far away from the company.
• rsync 4y ago
  I have never used Glassdoor but I have a decent sense of what they do there … … and it never occurred to me for even a moment that any user of Glassdoor provided personally identifiable details … why would anyone do this ? Related: Where can I see the op ? Blog says they are scared to repost it but I’m not. Where can I see the “offending” material ?
• goindeep 4y ago
  I'm not sure how Glassdoor works but wont these people just see this news and can't they just delete their reviews?
• Dave3of5 4y ago
  Thanks for the heads up I was always unsure about posting reviews on Glassdoor now I know that I will not post any reviews.
• omegacharlie 4y ago
  Reminds me of the Penet remailer scandal[1] - which lead to chilling-effects over 'anonymous' user information being disclosed and its eventual shutdown. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penet_remailer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penet_remailer
• DoubleGlazing 4y ago
  Every review I have posted on Glassdoor has been with a disposable email address, using my own device and using a public WiFi hotspot. I once had an employer try to get legal on me because I went to work for a rival after they laid me off - so I know some employers can be petty like that. I trust Glassdoor to keep their promise of not releasing my ID voluntarily, but when courts get involved all bets are off.
  • rsync 4y ago
    I assumed everyone posting on Glassdoor used such opsec. It’s like a “must be this talk to ride” sign at a carnival ride.
    • DoubleGlazing 4y ago
      I've seen a fair few reviews for companies I used to work at where it was really easy to ID the reviewer as they were too forthcoming with details. Some people just don't see the potential dangers of posting negative reviews without properly hiding their ID.
• HeavyStorm 4y ago
  Never trusted the fact that reviews on glassdoor AREN'T anonymous... Oh sure, they hide your name and email, but they have it. A good secret isn't a secret if someone knows it. I always wondered if they should - and now I wonder if they could - have really anonymous reviews. Just don't tie a review to a user. Sure, ask users to create accounts, validate them, but once they submit a review, it's store without details. This would make it impossible to respond to subpoenas such as this. And my question now is, could they?
  • spadros 4y ago
    Need to track who said what for libel cases. There are plenty of unfairly scathing Glassdoor reviews. If Glassdoor can’t point to who said it, they’re the one who gets sued.
    • badRNG 4y ago
      > Need to track who said what for libel cases. > If Glassdoor can’t point to who said it, they’re the one who gets sued. Why? HN doesn't have any information on me. If I say something that's alleged to be libelous, does that mean HN is responsible? That seems a bit out there.
• langsoul-com 4y ago
  Reminds me of VPNs, they say they're anonymous, but you never really know till shit hits the fan. At that point, you could be fucked.
• fooblat 4y ago
  After two experiences, I no longer use or trust Glassdoor. 1. After turning in my notice to resign, the company I was leaving offered me a written agreement where they would pay me $2500 for leaving a positive review on Glassdoor. 2. Someone I used to work with posted a personal attack on Glassdoor, that was clearly against the policies (along the lines of "The CEO is human garbage"), and yet no amount of flagging or reporting the post resulted in them taking it down.
• bovermyer 4y ago
  I long ago deleted my Glassdoor account and refuse to use it. This got me to thinking, though. If Glassdoor and similar websites are unreliable, what are some other tactics for learning about the internal culture of a potential workplace? Play the long game and make friends at every company you might be interested in in the future?
• upstarter 4y ago
  Is there any issue with not giving Glassdoor your real identity?
• bocytron 4y ago
  A good reminder that when you want to be anonymous on the internet, don't use any email / username / ip adress that can be linked back to you. It's quite easy to create a throwaway email and send your review from a public wi-fi.
• amadeuspagel 4y ago
  Blind promises that "all email addresses are hashed, salted and then encrypted. Blind accounts are stored separately from the hashed email addresses. This means that a user’s activity cannot be traced to an email. As an added measure, we do not collect real names. We also discourage users from sharing too much personal information in their posts and messages, which others could potentially use to identify them."[1] [1]: https://us.teamblind.com/logic https://us.teamblind.com/logic
• NZ_Matt 4y ago
  The original review can be read here https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/w2lvgp/zuru_glassdoor_review_read_the_review_they_dont https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/w2lvgp/zuru_gla...
• mindaslab 4y ago
  I have seen some reviews mysteriously disappear from glass door. It's not a glass door but an opaque door.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• tartoran 4y ago
  Wouldn’t this ruling destroy Glassdoor’s business model? And wouldn’t Zuru actually shoot themselves in the foot with this move? I’d certainly stay away from a company that is this litigious for such a thing. I think it would have been a better option for Zuru to have hired a new management (or reshuffle the old one at least) and do some PR to clean their name. At least they’ll learn about the Streissand effect
• shultays 4y ago
  Does Glassdoor give a way for companies to do something about fake reviews that are done in bad faith? I doubt they check validity of any reviews, even if a company claims that it is fake. I am not saying this is an example to such case but I don't see any other option. Other than perhaps suing glassdoor instead, would that do any good?
• twistedpair 4y ago
  Anyone remember back when Glassdoor didn't use TLS for many years? You're employer had a cakewalk seeing what you were posting if you did it from the office. :/
• 8589934591 4y ago
  My current company had around 20 or so negative reviews bringing the ratings down to 2. We had a new HR head come in and asked employees to rate 5 stars. Poof. 16 of the negative reviews have vanished. They're now replaced with 5 star reviews. We're currently at 3. HR's goal is to bring it up to 4. I definitely don't trust glassdoor. :(
  • brightball 4y ago
    I don’t trust online reviews in general. I read 1 and 2 star reviews to check for anything I may need to be cautious about but I generally assume that 5 star reviews are intentional padding. Do you find yourself leaving 5 star reviews regularly? Leaving reviews at all? Are you more motivated to leave a review if a bad experience or a good experience?
    • 8589934591 4y ago
      I do the same as you, check for lower ratings to be informed. I have found it helps if I talk to current/ex employees on linkedin. So far that has been transparent and helpful. The usual 5 stars are just generic "awesome team/great culture" which is useless. I have left both 5 star and 1 star reviews. Unfortunately some of my 1 stars have been removed. I leave 5 stars when it's good (ignoring any usual corporate politics that might exist, these exist anywhere regardless). My 5 stars are usually descriptive enough to make it authentic and not like "good place to work, friendly ppl, awesome culture". I leave 1 star when things get really bad, like really unethical backstabbing sort of bad. But then again I don't understand how companies are able to get them removed off of glassdoor. Like, my current company has done everything from removing reviews to having good publicity on glassdoor/linkedin/any social media but they have not tackled one single negative review head on to change their culture. Lol.
    • mbg721 4y ago
      Glassdoor is different from most other star-ratings because the reviews are really of a bunch of different products. Even in the same department, different bosses can produce wildly different experiences.
    • 4y ago
• exabrial 4y ago
  Where is glassdor located? If it’s not in New Zealand, what are the consequences of giving them the middle finger and saying “No, we will not comply; feel free to block us in your insignificant country”?
  • blantonl 4y ago
    Glassdoor Execs could be charged and convicted in NZ, insuring they never could set foot in the country without being arrested.
    • exabrial 4y ago
      Not trying to sound pretentious... but it is just NZ, correct? Do they really matter in the grand scope of things like Free Speech?
• verelo 4y ago
  Someone wrote something very shitty, and damaging about (it wasn’t 100% clear - i suspect on purpose) me or some of the people i worked with. It was categorically false for me to be included in these allegations (i believe the entire claim was untrue but i guess i only really know my truth), and i had no way to even ask the person to omit me or why they felt i should be bundled in. At one point this became such a stress i was having panic attacks. I had zero recourse. I hated the job but stayed longer just to prove me leaving wasn’t related to that review which became the topic of the company all hands when they hired an investigative lawyer to look into the allegations. So yeah…Screw that person but also screw glassdoor for facilitating their narrative.
  • ricardobeat 4y ago
    This doesn't mean they should de-anonymize reviews, but have some moderation to stop any kind of personal attacks or information from being posted on the platform.
    • verelo 4y ago
      Where did i say it should be de-anonymize? I’m just saying they assisted in perpetuating a very damaging narrative against my person. I agree moderation is key. They were so restrictive on amending the review in any way that it STILL exists. It’s been toned down somewhat, but the current moderation is a joke.
• tpoacher 4y ago
  This is actually an amazing opportunity for Glassdoor. Just put a "badge" next to companies known to sue employees who post reviews on Glassdoor. No reviews are even needed from that point on to signify a shitty company; for all anyone knows all negative reviews may have been taken down through legal action, but the badge stays, signifying that there was at least one review so damaging that they had to get lawyers involved (or that the company climate is of that toxic kind that sues its own disgruntled employees more generally). In the end suing will end up acting as the ultimate bad review for that company on the site.
  • dhosek 4y ago
    Except where’s the money in that for Glassdoor? Glassdoor makes money from job listings and it’s in their interests to have positive reviews of companies as that’s going to get companies to pay for job listings because they’ll get more/better applicants if they have positive reviews.
    • tpoacher 4y ago
      "Good"companies will continue having positive reviews. I'd argue that "bad" companies with predominantly positive reviews, were the negative reviews were all effectively sued away, presumably hurt Glassdoor's model more than they help it, so it's in their best interests to flag "bad" companies using other means. Also, "good" vs "bad" is an oversimplification. In reality the most likely outcome is that this badge will become another point for companies to game. But if the result of that it acts as a disincentive to suing employees that leave bad reviews, to me that's presumably a good outcome.
      • dhosek 4y ago
        The thing is, that companies tend to irrationally chase money, damn the consequences. I used to work for eHarmony and despite consistent user complaints, they continued to run ads for paying users because they made money from that. They didn’t care about the reputation hit or the quality of the experience, just the revenue that the ads generated. I don’t think that eHarmony was particularly unique in that respect. Everything gets A/B tested to maximize revenue and that’s all anyone seems to care about.
• devy 4y ago
  Nothing on the Internet these days (especially on review sites) are anonymous any more. Putting opinions on the internet is a risky business if untrue, there are legal consequences. Fun fact: I had received cease or decease letters from the lawyers representing a business that I left negative reviews on Yelp many years ago. As long as your reviews are true and factual based, they don't have much of a case against you (libel or defamation), with exceptions of course like Depp v. Heard which wasn't trialed in the court of Virginia but really trialed in the court of public opinions and lots of lawyers thought Depp would loose. Another exception to the high bar of winning libel/defamation case is Bollea v. Gawker - which Peter Thiel has enough deep pocket to literally bankrupted Gawker media. Otherwise, stay truth state facts in reviews, you should be fine for the most scenarios.
• _dw7s 4y ago
  Obligatory 'How do delete all your data from Glassdoor' link https://help.glassdoor.com/s/privacyrequest?language=en_US https://help.glassdoor.com/s/privacyrequest?language=en_US
• daveguy 4y ago
  Hopefully Glassdoor is still pursuing protection of the reviewers. This was a rejected motion to squash the whole case without a hearing. That doesn't mean after a hearing there will be a decision in Zuru's favor, just that there is enough for a hearing. At least that's the way I read it, but I'm not a lawyer.
• upupandup 4y ago
  Not only this but internal surveys as well. One particular company (100+ startup) in Vancouver was well known for this. The CEO would tell workers that the survey was anonymous but then would immediately try to identify track down humiliate them. It was posted on Glassdoor a couple of times but pretty sure they were taken down like this.
• cdkmoose 4y ago
  In general, I don't like the idea of breaking the anonymity, and I haven't checked the reviews posted about Zuru, but the tough question is, should you/a company have the right to break anonymity for factually inaccurate statements. As a publicly elected official, I have had someone lie about me at a public meeting. An accusation which if true, would certainly inhibit my ability to get re-elected. Since it was in public, I could find the person who said it and got a public retraction at the next meeting. Thankfully these occurrences are few and far between, but doesn't diminish the question about the rights of the target. But what if this accusation was posted anonymously and I could not find the the accuser? Should I be allowed to get the name from the site?
• kmcnoble 4y ago
  Glassdoor makes you fill out your own company review in order to view others. However you actually don’t know how anonymous they are and if there is a way to find who wrote it as it can present legal risks to employees
• S_A_P 4y ago
  Question- how does a company like Zuru think this is a good idea? Suing a former employee because they left a negative review doesn’t exactly give me warm fuzzies. Is this just a case of C level megalomania?
  • deadbunny 4y ago
    Insert Supernintendo Chalmers meme. Is it out management culture that is the problem? No must be the peons we employ who leave bad reviews.
• napworth 4y ago
  Why don't they just anonymise the data, so even Glassdoor doesn't know who it came from?
• junkilo 4y ago
  Sad to see that were going to have to start using throwaway accounts to post anything on glassdoor. Next up: Blind.
• overgard 4y ago
  Man, apparently these founders have never heard of the Streisand effect. Very dumb move by them. I would never work for a company that sues whistle blowers like this.
• YeBanKo 4y ago
  "Zuru hasn't simply alleged that it suffered a loss; Zuru’s cofounders declared, under penalty of perjury, that because of the negative reviews, Zuru had to spend more money to recruit job candidates for a particular position." I don't understand the logic of the judge here. If even the most true-to-fact negative review may result in spending more for recruiting. Did not they have to demonstrate that they had monetary losses specifically attributed to dishonest negative review?
• Ava433 4y ago