8 ms·

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...
    - bogwog 4y ago
      > this is how yelp did it back in the day. Yelp no longer does this?
      - alasdair_ 4y ago
        Yelp now just send oven a couple of large men with baseball bats who say “Nice business you got here. Would be a shame if something happened to it…” to cut out the foreplay.
        metadat 4y ago
        False and an unhelpful / irrelevant comment. Perhaps parent was trying to be funny but I found it confusing.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    The rumor has long been that they contact you about it. Presumably they figure it based on page views and review volume to determine your hiring rate and churn etc and sentiment analysis of your worst reviews so they aren't just shotgunning these offers at every company that has reviews on their site. Just passing along rumors I have no particularly informed insight here or verifiable reason to believe this is true, though I do believe it's in the plausible-to-likely range.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      How else does Glassdoor make money, then? So somehow it's payola.
- noitpmeder 4y ago
  Do you have proof or are you just throwing shit to see what sticks?
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    It's a rumor many years old at this point that I have also heard from many different sources. That doesn't make it true of course but it's not like they made it up on the spot today for this HN thread.
- amatecha 4y ago
  Hmm, that doesn't correlate with what they say[0] on their support site: "No! Employers cannot pay Glassdoor to remove reviews." That said, it seems like negative reviews can easily end up violating one of the many other terms of use[1] around review content. Specifically that a user will not: "Post Content that is defamatory, libelous, or fraudulent"... and "Act in a manner that is [...] otherwise objectionable (as determined by Glassdoor)". That's really broad, and negative reviews can easily be framed as "defamatory" or "objectionable" even if they are factual... [0] https://help.glassdoor.com/s/article/Can-employers-pay-Glassdoor-to-remove-reviews?language=en_US https://help.glassdoor.com/s/article/Can-employers-pay-Glass... [1] https://www.glassdoor.com/about/terms.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/about/terms.htm
  - kadoban 4y ago
    > Hmm, that doesn't correlate with what they say[0] on their support site: "No! Employers cannot pay Glassdoor to remove reviews." They could easily be telling the truth there, but still be effectively selling a good rating. They'd just have to sell a service to help monitor the reviews in some way for violations of ToS. Suddenly ~all of the bad reviews are "spam", "libel", etc. It's amazing how broadly things can be recognized as abusive if your pocketbook depends on it. I have _no_ idea if they're actually doing this or not, but it's along the lines of the scam many review sites use.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    This is as old as the BBB - you never ever "pay to remove reviews" you just, as a paying member in good standing, have the ability to request review of reviews, and the working ability to make sure things are "accurate and resolved".
  - alisonatwork 4y ago
    This is what I presume is happening too. I have worked at several companies that received a lot of poor reviews and often what happens if you keep track of those reviews over several months is that they "mysteriously" disappear. Of course by that point the person who left the review has probably moved on to a new job and can't be bothered writing another review that is sufficiently vague as to avoid potential removal. One company I worked at even had its overall rating significantly messed with (over 0.5 change within a month), as those old reviews disappeared and "mysteriously" a bunch of vapid positive reviews appeared. All that said, I still check Glassdoor before every job I interview for. You just need to be mindful - especially for larger companies who can afford the time to curate their reviews - that the score is perhaps a little inflated, and that the reviews that remain are as tactfully-worded as possible to avoid deletion.
- arwhatever 4y ago
  Semi-related scheisty Glassdoor anecdote: I worked at a company Foo which appeared as 2 separate companies on Glassdoor: Foo, and separately Foo Technology. Foo Technology unambiguously did not exist as a separate company in any form. Thing is, Foo was the unlikely company where the line workers were more satisfied than the Technology employees - the company overall was very decent but the technology org was toxic. Accordingly, Foo Technology had lousy ratings and negative reviews, while Foo has largely positive reviews and a strong rating. The difference was on the order of Foo~=4.0 while Foo Technology~=2.0, both derived from a significant number of employees. You can imagine the pitfall this could create as a prospective technology employee contemplating a stint at Foo. As a disgruntled Foo “Technology” employee I contacted Glassdoor to notify them that a nonexistent company was distracting many genuine reviews away from a legitimate company. Glassdoor notified me that they would not provide any corrective action unless the formal owner of the Glassdoor account for Foo agreed to it. This told me that accuracy of reviews on Glassdoor comes in a few positions shy of their top priority. Although in full disclosure, a year or two later the 2 separate “companies” did get merged on Glassdoor. I don’t know what the impetus finally was, but they certainly didn’t give a shit when I notified them of the snafu with their system.
  - aceazzameen 4y ago
    A company I used to work for did something almost exactly the same. Makes me wonder how often companies do this to skirt negative reviews.
- metadat 4y ago
  The companies that go the lawsuit route probably didn't pay glassdoor to get the review removed in the first place. The companies they'd be outing aren't valuable to glassdoor.
mLuby 4y ago
A decent outcome would be Glassdoor covering the users' legal fees.
goodpoint 4y ago
Glassdoor is in no way taking the side of employees. It's business model is based on selling out to the employers.

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...
  - bogwog 4y ago
    > this is how yelp did it back in the day. Yelp no longer does this?
    - alasdair_ 4y ago
      Yelp now just send oven a couple of large men with baseball bats who say “Nice business you got here. Would be a shame if something happened to it…” to cut out the foreplay.
      - metadat 4y ago
        False and an unhelpful / irrelevant comment. Perhaps parent was trying to be funny but I found it confusing.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  The rumor has long been that they contact you about it. Presumably they figure it based on page views and review volume to determine your hiring rate and churn etc and sentiment analysis of your worst reviews so they aren't just shotgunning these offers at every company that has reviews on their site. Just passing along rumors I have no particularly informed insight here or verifiable reason to believe this is true, though I do believe it's in the plausible-to-likely range.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    How else does Glassdoor make money, then? So somehow it's payola.
noitpmeder 4y ago
Do you have proof or are you just throwing shit to see what sticks?
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  It's a rumor many years old at this point that I have also heard from many different sources. That doesn't make it true of course but it's not like they made it up on the spot today for this HN thread.
amatecha 4y ago
Hmm, that doesn't correlate with what they say[0] on their support site: "No! Employers cannot pay Glassdoor to remove reviews." That said, it seems like negative reviews can easily end up violating one of the many other terms of use[1] around review content. Specifically that a user will not: "Post Content that is defamatory, libelous, or fraudulent"... and "Act in a manner that is [...] otherwise objectionable (as determined by Glassdoor)". That's really broad, and negative reviews can easily be framed as "defamatory" or "objectionable" even if they are factual... [0] https://help.glassdoor.com/s/article/Can-employers-pay-Glassdoor-to-remove-reviews?language=en_US https://help.glassdoor.com/s/article/Can-employers-pay-Glass... [1] https://www.glassdoor.com/about/terms.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/about/terms.htm
- kadoban 4y ago
  > Hmm, that doesn't correlate with what they say[0] on their support site: "No! Employers cannot pay Glassdoor to remove reviews." They could easily be telling the truth there, but still be effectively selling a good rating. They'd just have to sell a service to help monitor the reviews in some way for violations of ToS. Suddenly ~all of the bad reviews are "spam", "libel", etc. It's amazing how broadly things can be recognized as abusive if your pocketbook depends on it. I have _no_ idea if they're actually doing this or not, but it's along the lines of the scam many review sites use.
- bombcar 4y ago
  This is as old as the BBB - you never ever "pay to remove reviews" you just, as a paying member in good standing, have the ability to request review of reviews, and the working ability to make sure things are "accurate and resolved".
- alisonatwork 4y ago
  This is what I presume is happening too. I have worked at several companies that received a lot of poor reviews and often what happens if you keep track of those reviews over several months is that they "mysteriously" disappear. Of course by that point the person who left the review has probably moved on to a new job and can't be bothered writing another review that is sufficiently vague as to avoid potential removal. One company I worked at even had its overall rating significantly messed with (over 0.5 change within a month), as those old reviews disappeared and "mysteriously" a bunch of vapid positive reviews appeared. All that said, I still check Glassdoor before every job I interview for. You just need to be mindful - especially for larger companies who can afford the time to curate their reviews - that the score is perhaps a little inflated, and that the reviews that remain are as tactfully-worded as possible to avoid deletion.
arwhatever 4y ago
Semi-related scheisty Glassdoor anecdote: I worked at a company Foo which appeared as 2 separate companies on Glassdoor: Foo, and separately Foo Technology. Foo Technology unambiguously did not exist as a separate company in any form. Thing is, Foo was the unlikely company where the line workers were more satisfied than the Technology employees - the company overall was very decent but the technology org was toxic. Accordingly, Foo Technology had lousy ratings and negative reviews, while Foo has largely positive reviews and a strong rating. The difference was on the order of Foo~=4.0 while Foo Technology~=2.0, both derived from a significant number of employees. You can imagine the pitfall this could create as a prospective technology employee contemplating a stint at Foo. As a disgruntled Foo “Technology” employee I contacted Glassdoor to notify them that a nonexistent company was distracting many genuine reviews away from a legitimate company. Glassdoor notified me that they would not provide any corrective action unless the formal owner of the Glassdoor account for Foo agreed to it. This told me that accuracy of reviews on Glassdoor comes in a few positions shy of their top priority. Although in full disclosure, a year or two later the 2 separate “companies” did get merged on Glassdoor. I don’t know what the impetus finally was, but they certainly didn’t give a shit when I notified them of the snafu with their system.
- aceazzameen 4y ago
  A company I used to work for did something almost exactly the same. Makes me wonder how often companies do this to skirt negative reviews.
metadat 4y ago
The companies that go the lawsuit route probably didn't pay glassdoor to get the review removed in the first place. The companies they'd be outing aren't valuable to glassdoor.

mLuby 4y ago

A decent outcome would be Glassdoor covering the users' legal fees.

goodpoint 4y ago

Glassdoor is in no way taking the side of employees. It's business model is based on selling out to the employers.