13 ms·

Glassdoor ordered to unmask former toy company employees who posted criticism

242 points by jackallis 4y ago

unethical_ban 4y ago
>Even though the ruling occurred in a U.S. federal court, Judge Tse said he made the ruling based on New Zealand law, as Zuru intends to sue in that jurisdiction. Therefore, the court's ruling was decided based on New Zealand law's definition of defamation, and not the U.S. legal definition. If Glassdoor and the anonymous review doesn't violate US law, then shouldn't the US judge butt out of it? Wouldn't a NZ judge order Glassdoor to turn over the data? Who mediates claims between parties from different countries?
- eru 4y ago
  > Who mediates claims between parties from different countries? That's a completely question in general with different answers depending on context. For example, it matters whether it's a criminal case or a civil case. If there's a contractual relationship between the affected parties, the contract often specifies this. For defamation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation might be a good start.
- bragr 4y ago
  IANAL but I suspect this is likely down to the details of the mutual legal assistance treaty between the US and NZ, e.g. the result of the US courts processing a foreign subpoena. Interestingly New Zealand doesn't appear to be a member of the Hague convention so I'm unsure how this is supposed to work in this case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Service_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Service_Convention
- snapetom 4y ago
  Yeah, I'd love to hear a lawyer's opinion on this. Seems to open a door for an appeal if a US judge is applying foreign definitions and litmus tests to US companies/citizens. At the very least, there are nuances that judges will not pick up when evaluating foreign law.
ijuz 4y ago
Glassdoor stored the information, so that was obviously their desired result.
k__ 4y ago
Sounds like there is a market for Glassdoor competitors that leverage self-sovereign identity and zero-knowledge proofs. Such reviews are probably THE killer app for ZKP.
- smt88 4y ago
  That would immediately turn into a situation where people smear businesses they don't like. As an individual, I could post 1,000 bad reviews instead of just 1. As a competitor, I could do the same. Glassdoor just wouldn't work if they couldn't verify someone's identity somehow.
  - k__ 4y ago
    Is this the case? If you have ZK verifiable credentials it would be rather hard to create all these identities and get them verified.
    - blep_ 4y ago
      No it wouldn't? You're confusing ZKPs with having identities tied to a real-world person.
      - k__ 4y ago
        This is what verifiable credentials are about.
        smt88 4y ago
        Glassdoor could not verify credentials without unmasking the user. There is no zero-knowledge way to accomplish this.
        k__ 4y ago
        They could verify that it's a real person without knowing which person.
ramosu 4y ago
I wrote a review once about a company (which was a big Glassdoor advertiser), but I said some bad things and they deleted saying it was spam. I've tried to argue with them to understand why it was considered spam (I posted only once), but they couldn't explain. So it became really hard for me to consider Glassdoor a trustful source of information.
- TeeMassive 4y ago
  If they remove criticism if you pay them, couldn't they be prosecuted for extortion?
  - aqme28 4y ago
    Yelp does the same, and has for ages.
    - spaetzleesser 4y ago
      BBB supposedly too.
      - ben174 4y ago
        BBB are the grand masters of extortion. They've been doing it before it was cool.
      - ben174 4y ago
        BBB are the grand masters of extortion. They've been doing it before it was cool. You know that "accredited" mark? It may as well be a dollar sign.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - voakbasda 4y ago
    In my book, absolutely, it is extortion. Yelp definitely uses that business model. I would guess that anyone who goes after them will probably suddenly experience a flood of “totally legitimate” one-star ratings, and those reviews would find their way into the court case as a means of discrediting the prosecution’s efforts. Source: experienced this sort of tactic firsthand in a similar kind of dispute over reputation.
0xbadc0de5 4y ago
Never heard of that company but they sound incredible. To paraphrase a great quote: "It's better to be thought of as a garbage company by a few than to unleash your lawyers and remove all doubt."
- Stampo00 4y ago
  This company doesn't understand public relations. Rather than countering bad PR with good PR, they decided to double down, cutting off their nose to spite their face.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - jeffwask 4y ago
    Streisand Effect in action
  - reaperducer 4y ago
    Lots of companies are run by bad people who should never run companies. Sometimes you don't know they're bad until they completely fail to handle adversity properly. A company I once worked for was violating several state laws. When I brought it to the owner's attention, he threatened to sue me. When I reported it to the state†, he fired me and said he was going to send his lawyers after me. They never got the chance. The state shut him down a few weeks later. †Note: When you report something to the state, in some states, you have no right to privacy. Not every state has whistleblower protections. This was explained to me by the state liaison I spoke with. He said under state law, he had to tell the employer who filed the complaint.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    Except that there will be no price to be paid for this (because no one will ever hear about it, and they sell toys), and the people who will remember it are their employees, who will be effectively intimidated from commenting on their experiences at the company after they leave. The Streisand Effect is starting to function like the Law of Averages in some people's minds. There is no publicity fairy flying around to right all wrongs. Publicizing things is extremely hard if they don't go viral, and they only go viral if they are funny, cute, bizarre, or incredibly cruel.
jkingsman 4y ago
Earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32146082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32146082
f4c39012 4y ago
Isn't the business model for Glassdoor to charge for the removal of unflattering reviews?
- fabian_shipamax 4y ago
  Glassdoor does not delete reviews but you can pay for "advice" how to get positive reviews instead.
- mr90210 4y ago
  No shit. Wow.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  That's what I thought to. But it seems Zuru isn't satisfied with mere removal of the review, or didn't want to pay for it. They're trying to unmask the ex-employee so they can sue him personally in New Zealand. They don't just want the review gone, they want the reviewer ruined.
  - upupandup 4y ago
    This is what a startup in Vancouver (highly visible, ~100 employees) got a reputation for. The CEO would go after glassdoor reviewers, and people who answer negatively on surveys that he told everybody was anonymous. The glassdoor reviews would mention the fact that this CEO was harassing them. Lots of shady stuff like misleading investors (like having 5 minute intro calls and announcing they have a partnership) and lying to their employees (whos RSU ultimately mounted to nothing). They were acquired a few years ago but the founders had sold most of their shares and ultimately the investors just broke even (possibly loss, and pissed). It seems like the smaller the market (comparing Vancouver & Auckland) the more nasty and toxic the local industry is. It's sad because after Hootsuite they were acting like they were next so took on VC money and proceeded to destroy/lie their own creation of 10+ years.
alxlu 4y ago
Is there any incentive to prevent a reviewer from just entering a pseudonym instead of their real name? It would be amusing if after the court order all the company received was "Test User was the one who wrote this review".
- lumost 4y ago
  In this day and age it’s worthwhile to assume that any data can be linked presuming that someone is motivated to do so. Glassdoor would probably be ordered to reveal ip address, and email. To block this the reviewer would need to use a one time anonymous email, and anonymous vpn. In turn, you can’t really trust either of those parties not to reveal your identity (although it might take more time). If I was to do something sensitive on such a site - I would use as many layers of indirection as I thought the companies legal team would be willing to expend in time. After 3-5 such proxies, it’s likely they would give up or at least have to expend 6 months to a year of legal effort to get to your actual identity. Note that in the above, financial contracts with email providers/etc will be a second method to de-anonymize you, and they are much faster to trace and much harder to avoid. Your best bet would be to get the free tier of every such service, and use a library computer/public Wi-Fi which does not require authentication and doesn’t have video recordings :shrug:
MichaelCollins 4y ago
Does anybody know if truth is an absolute defense against defamation lawsuits in New Zealand? From what I can determine, it is a defense but not an absolute one. It seems a public interest defense is also possible in New Zealand, but only since 2018 when that precedent was set.
- itronitron 4y ago
  I've read that 'honest opinion' is a defense in NZ so presumably if the toy company finds out the negative review is from an actual former employee then they will either stop pursuing it or just take legal action from China.
dalbasal 4y ago
>>"Even though the ruling occurred in a U.S. federal court, Judge Tse said he made the ruling based on New Zealand law, as Zuru intends to sue in that jurisdiction. Therefore, the court's ruling was decided based on New Zealand law's definition of defamation, and not the U.S. legal definition." that's confusing.
- nimbius 4y ago
  this seems suspicious. generally you seek out foreign courts when you want to set a precedent or touchstone for a favourable outcome in your court, or you want to cherrypick a legislative tome thats favourable to your case. this strongly suggests that had Zuru just litigated this in New Zealand, they would have lost.
  - abduhl 4y ago
    Or, more likely, they intend to lose but also expect to take advantage of America’s rather unique legal procedures with expansive discovery powers (you can discover nearly anything in America) and, probably more importantly, the losing party doesn’t normally have to pay for the winner’s fees. The latter part is what I would do when trying to send a message to employees not to speak out: "do this and we will make you hurt even if we have to go international"
    - tiahura 4y ago
      (you can discover nearly anything in America) That really hasn’t been the case since the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were amended in 2015. The new rule requires that discovery be “neither unreasonable nor unduly burdensome or expensive, considering the needs of the case, prior discovery in the case, the amount in controversy, and the importance of the issues at stake in the action.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(g)(1)(B)(iii) (1983) https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/pretrial-practice-discovery/practice/2019/proportionality-has-some-bite/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/pre...
  - jmull 4y ago
    I’m pretty sure this is just a matter of jurisdiction. Glassdoor is an American company. They probably had to sue in an American court to be able to legally compel them.
f1gm3nt 4y ago
GD is joke. I worked at a company that would relentlessly take down the negative reviews. Once hired, they would butter you up to get a positive review so any negative reviews they couldn’t remove would be offset. That’s when I lost all trust in GD.
maerF0x0 4y ago
First of all Glassdoor has, in my experience, been full of useless information. From seemingly intentionally depressing compensation information to observing employers frequently having email campaigns soliciting "positive reviews" (and positive ones only) to jump on Glassdoor "because it helps our hiring!" (you're part of the in group, right?) This kind of suit is particularly concerning because: 1. How could an individual ever expect to stand against a $400M ARR company? (presuming there is a positive correlation between legal spend and outcomes) 2. When companies do this, they're siphoning off profit created by labor, to silence and suppress labor's best interests such as freedom of speech, transparent views into what it's like to work there, freedoms/rights of action and behavior outside the 9-5/cubicle (figuratively speaking). The machinations of working class control working as designed. Edit: but I do recognize this is also part of incentives. Companies pay glassdoor, not reviewers. Perhaps we stop using sites incentivized to destroy us?
- dvtrn 4y ago
  observing employers frequently having email campaigns soliciting "positive reviews" (and positive ones only) I really want to see a larger conversation happening over this one day, but all I have are grumblings and ramblings. Nearly every job I’ve had in the last five years (3) has launched internal campaigns that heavily pushed the “please write us a review on Glassdoor!” Requests. And the language made it pretty clear they only wanted to see the good stuff. And by heavily I mean I have the distinct memory of counting how many emails I got in a single quarter with reminders that the deadline to send a review was coming up. That number was nine. Adding to this: on the SAME DAY that my most recent job (a startup in the Northeast) laid off myself and 30% of other staff, we got an email in our personal inboxes asking for Glassdoor reviews, and asking if we’d like to join an “alumni committee” that would go out and do “community events” and other similar outings that the company will almost undoubtedly be using in recruiting posts and imagery. It left me, someone who is already pretty cynical towards “workplace culture” at work even more cynical about the machinations of “workplace [mono]cultures”
  - zeruch 4y ago
    "observing employers frequently having email campaigns soliciting "positive reviews" (and positive ones only)" I've seen this happen once, to the point where HR stepped in and said 'no, we don't do this!" to the execs that were pushing this. The irony was delicious.
rybosworld 4y ago
Most people here probably know this already, but Glassdoor sucks. They do all sorts of things to hide bad reviews and make companies look better than they are. This includes: - altering the weights of reviews - applying filters that hide unfavorable reviews - excluding reviews from the rating score altogether
nilsbunger 4y ago
> Even though the ruling occurred in a U.S. federal court, Judge Tse said he made the ruling based on New Zealand law, as Zuru intends to sue in that jurisdiction How can a US federal judge interpret New Zealand law? My mental model of the legal system is that a judge in the US would only make decisions based on US law.
- ngc248 4y ago
  Exactly, why is a US judge ruling by taking into consideration NZ law ... doesn't make sense
- jeffbee 4y ago
  U.S. federal courts are frequently called upon to interpret foreign law, and are presumed capable of doing so. They may not have practiced law in the given jurisdiction, but since federal judges are appointed there's no strong reason to believe they are qualified to interpret U.S. laws, either.
- soderfoo 4y ago
  See: International comity [1] (more like comedy, as my law school professor joked) My guess is that since this is a NZ company, that country's laws should apply, but Glassdoor being a US entity necessitates a US court applying (or enforcing) the law or judgment of NZ. For whatever strategic reason, their legal team sought a judgement in the US first. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comity More info for anyone interested: https://columbialawreview.org/content/international-comity-in-american-law/ https://columbialawreview.org/content/international-comity-i...
  - NohatCoder 4y ago
    That is a comedy for sure. The particular ruling seems to run straight against the Californian libel tourism law of 2010, at the very least in spirit.
    - vanattab 4y ago
      Definitely not a lawyer, but I would think the counter argument might be their is no judgment from New Zealand yet so the libel tourism law would not apply. For example if after this guy is unmasked it turns out he is living in the USA and is found guilty in NZ but would not have been guilty in the USA then they would not order extradite/use us banking system to enforce the ruling. However if the he would have been found guilty in the U.S. (say he is the CEO of a competing company who never even worked for the company.) then the US would enforce the NZ judgment. It least that is my best guess
maximilianroos 4y ago
The headline here is — "if you care about the state protecting your privacy — don't live in New Zealand", rather than "...don't post on Glassdoor": From the opinion: > In New Zealand, statements of opinion are not categorically protected. New Zealand makes available a more limited protection, allowing the defendant in a defamation action to assert the defense of "honest opinion." ... The honest-opinion defense is an affirmative defense: the defendant bears the burden of proving that he honestly held the opinions he expressed. > Here, then, the question under New Zealand law isn't whether the reviews on Glassdoor.com were opinions, but whether, if they were opinions, they reflected the reviewers' honest opinions. That question can't be answered now. The reviewers haven't even been identified, much less appeared in court and offered evidence on the genuineness of their opinions. Zuru, at this point, just wants discovery—to learn who wrote the reviews.
- thomascgalvin 4y ago
  How exactly are you supposed to prove that an opinion was honestly held? If it was on the claimant to prove it was not, I guess I could see it; "hey, this guy said we're a nuclear waste dump in corporate form, run by men that make Jeffrey Dahmer look like a blessed saint, but here's all of his Facebook posts declaring his unending love for us!" But how do you prove you actually believe something? FMRI images from when you make the statement? Polygraph? Sworn testimony from your friends that you said the same thing frequently, and seemed honest when doing so? I have the same problem with "sincerely held religious belief" in America. You can't prove that a belief is sincerely held, and laws that reference this idea exist only to discriminate against unpopular faiths.
  - MatthiasPortzel 4y ago
    The law uses intention and sincerity all the time. The easiest way to prove it in this case would be to subpoena statements made about the company in private, then compare them to the publicly stated opinion to see if there was a difference. If, for example, the person was a stakeholder in a competitive company and documented that they were trying to hurt the company, then it obviously wouldn’t be an honest opinion. I’m guess that’s what the New Zealand law is trying to make illegal. (Although in the US that would be legal as long as your statements were an opinion that someone could possibly hold (i.e. not factual lies).)
justinzollars 4y ago
"Let the Flowers Bloom!" [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign
time_to_smile 4y ago
I'm surprised anyone takes glassdoor remotely seriously anymore, and often wonder how they still exist. I once worked at an extremely toxic company, that derived pleasure from firing and threatening to fire people for any disagreement with "leadership". I remember looking at glassdoor to see if there was a warning there I missed when I accepted the offer. Monitoring it I noticed overall ridiculously high reviews, and only newer reviews where negative and made comments showing what I had observed. However rechecking in a few months I noticed those reviews were removed. Certain people in the company really enjoyed threatening people with lawsuits, so I wasn't interest in trying to fight the tide and leave my own negative review, assuming that they would go out of their way to id me. Still the fact that such an awful company could have such glowing reviews forever turned me off from glassdoor.
_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
LinuxBender 4y ago
Are tor hidden services fast enough yet to handle running an independent alternative to GD and would people be able to easily reach it? Do any browsers make it easy for the average worker to reach onion sites? Or perhaps a better question is, could there be a more distributed and decentralized alternative that is less prone to tampering by corporations, money and individual countries having overreach that the average person could still access? I'm thinking something like usenet but implemented in a way that doesn't get spammed to oblivion.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
gpspake 4y ago
I think it would be funny if they went to all this trouble only to find that the user used a burner email address and account and posted from a coffee shop or something. I'm sure there's some verification or other PII required to post a review but the resulting headline if the order was essentially for nothing would be notable in and of itself.
barkingcat 4y ago
Glassdoor is always a strange concept. To give anonymous feedback, use your official work email to sign in... only a person who doesn't care about anonymity would do that.
- flerchin 4y ago
  That's Blind.
otikik 4y ago
This is as good as a time as ever to inform you that "Zuru" are the first two syllables of "Zurullo", whose most colloquial meaning in Spanish(ES-es) is "compact portion of human excrement expelled in one go".
- smegsicle 4y ago
  and i thought that germans were obsessed with poop
teawrecks 4y ago
> "Glassdoor wants to safeguard anonymous speech on its website. Zuru wants to protect its reputation. Both interests can’t simultaneously be accommodated." Accidental self-own?
outworlder 4y ago
This is a cautionary tale for everyone posting things "anonymously". Be it on Glassdoor or, even more worrying, Blind. One has no way of knowing what sort of data is in a company's database. Even if they take effort to anonymize your information, that may not be enough. Just assume that your identity is going to be revealed at some point and take steps to protect it.
IncRnd 4y ago
> Even though the ruling occurred in a U.S. federal court, Judge Tse said he made the ruling based on New Zealand law, as Zuru intends to sue in that jurisdiction. Therefore, the court's ruling was decided based on New Zealand law's definition of defamation, and not the U.S. legal definition. This is ridiculous. A US judge should not unmask someone's privacy on behalf of a company in NZ that hasn't filed a defamation lawsuit in the US against the poster. The NZ company should file a US case and then convince the judge to unmask the poster. This was social engineering on the part of the NZ company and was also Judge Tse overstepping his authority. There is no reason to even have laws in the US, when a judge can decide to apply foreign law that doesn't originate or cover people here.
lowbloodsugar 4y ago
>Glassdoor also posted an alert on the company's page, alerting users that Zuru has taken legal action and saying, "Please exercise your best judgment when evaluating this employer." Bahaha. Good job Zuru.
skeeter2020 4y ago
> Even though the ruling occurred in a U.S. federal court, Judge Tse said he made the ruling based on New Zealand law How can this possibly be allowed to exist? Can I file in my jurisdiction of choice and then bring along the most favourable laws from any others?
tolstoshev 4y ago
Reminds me of an adage that has served me well: "Write every email as if it will be one day read aloud in a deposition."

242 points by jackallis 4y ago

unethical_ban 4y ago

eru 4y ago
> Who mediates claims between parties from different countries? That's a completely question in general with different answers depending on context. For example, it matters whether it's a criminal case or a civil case. If there's a contractual relationship between the affected parties, the contract often specifies this. For defamation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation might be a good start.
bragr 4y ago
IANAL but I suspect this is likely down to the details of the mutual legal assistance treaty between the US and NZ, e.g. the result of the US courts processing a foreign subpoena. Interestingly New Zealand doesn't appear to be a member of the Hague convention so I'm unsure how this is supposed to work in this case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Service_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Service_Convention
snapetom 4y ago
Yeah, I'd love to hear a lawyer's opinion on this. Seems to open a door for an appeal if a US judge is applying foreign definitions and litmus tests to US companies/citizens. At the very least, there are nuances that judges will not pick up when evaluating foreign law.

ijuz 4y ago

Glassdoor stored the information, so that was obviously their desired result.

k__ 4y ago

Sounds like there is a market for Glassdoor competitors that leverage self-sovereign identity and zero-knowledge proofs. Such reviews are probably THE killer app for ZKP.

smt88 4y ago
That would immediately turn into a situation where people smear businesses they don't like. As an individual, I could post 1,000 bad reviews instead of just 1. As a competitor, I could do the same. Glassdoor just wouldn't work if they couldn't verify someone's identity somehow.
- k__ 4y ago
  Is this the case? If you have ZK verifiable credentials it would be rather hard to create all these identities and get them verified.
  - blep_ 4y ago
    No it wouldn't? You're confusing ZKPs with having identities tied to a real-world person.
    - k__ 4y ago
      This is what verifiable credentials are about.
      - smt88 4y ago
        Glassdoor could not verify credentials without unmasking the user. There is no zero-knowledge way to accomplish this.
        k__ 4y ago
        They could verify that it's a real person without knowing which person.

ramosu 4y ago

I wrote a review once about a company (which was a big Glassdoor advertiser), but I said some bad things and they deleted saying it was spam. I've tried to argue with them to understand why it was considered spam (I posted only once), but they couldn't explain. So it became really hard for me to consider Glassdoor a trustful source of information.

TeeMassive 4y ago
If they remove criticism if you pay them, couldn't they be prosecuted for extortion?
- aqme28 4y ago
  Yelp does the same, and has for ages.
  - spaetzleesser 4y ago
    BBB supposedly too.
    - ben174 4y ago
      BBB are the grand masters of extortion. They've been doing it before it was cool.
    - ben174 4y ago
      BBB are the grand masters of extortion. They've been doing it before it was cool. You know that "accredited" mark? It may as well be a dollar sign.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- voakbasda 4y ago
  In my book, absolutely, it is extortion. Yelp definitely uses that business model. I would guess that anyone who goes after them will probably suddenly experience a flood of “totally legitimate” one-star ratings, and those reviews would find their way into the court case as a means of discrediting the prosecution’s efforts. Source: experienced this sort of tactic firsthand in a similar kind of dispute over reputation.

0xbadc0de5 4y ago

Never heard of that company but they sound incredible. To paraphrase a great quote: "It's better to be thought of as a garbage company by a few than to unleash your lawyers and remove all doubt."

Stampo00 4y ago
This company doesn't understand public relations. Rather than countering bad PR with good PR, they decided to double down, cutting off their nose to spite their face.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jeffwask 4y ago
  Streisand Effect in action
- reaperducer 4y ago
  Lots of companies are run by bad people who should never run companies. Sometimes you don't know they're bad until they completely fail to handle adversity properly. A company I once worked for was violating several state laws. When I brought it to the owner's attention, he threatened to sue me. When I reported it to the state†, he fired me and said he was going to send his lawyers after me. They never got the chance. The state shut him down a few weeks later. †Note: When you report something to the state, in some states, you have no right to privacy. Not every state has whistleblower protections. This was explained to me by the state liaison I spoke with. He said under state law, he had to tell the employer who filed the complaint.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Except that there will be no price to be paid for this (because no one will ever hear about it, and they sell toys), and the people who will remember it are their employees, who will be effectively intimidated from commenting on their experiences at the company after they leave. The Streisand Effect is starting to function like the Law of Averages in some people's minds. There is no publicity fairy flying around to right all wrongs. Publicizing things is extremely hard if they don't go viral, and they only go viral if they are funny, cute, bizarre, or incredibly cruel.

jkingsman 4y ago

Earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32146082 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32146082

f4c39012 4y ago

Isn't the business model for Glassdoor to charge for the removal of unflattering reviews?

fabian_shipamax 4y ago
Glassdoor does not delete reviews but you can pay for "advice" how to get positive reviews instead.
mr90210 4y ago
No shit. Wow.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
That's what I thought to. But it seems Zuru isn't satisfied with mere removal of the review, or didn't want to pay for it. They're trying to unmask the ex-employee so they can sue him personally in New Zealand. They don't just want the review gone, they want the reviewer ruined.
- upupandup 4y ago
  This is what a startup in Vancouver (highly visible, ~100 employees) got a reputation for. The CEO would go after glassdoor reviewers, and people who answer negatively on surveys that he told everybody was anonymous. The glassdoor reviews would mention the fact that this CEO was harassing them. Lots of shady stuff like misleading investors (like having 5 minute intro calls and announcing they have a partnership) and lying to their employees (whos RSU ultimately mounted to nothing). They were acquired a few years ago but the founders had sold most of their shares and ultimately the investors just broke even (possibly loss, and pissed). It seems like the smaller the market (comparing Vancouver & Auckland) the more nasty and toxic the local industry is. It's sad because after Hootsuite they were acting like they were next so took on VC money and proceeded to destroy/lie their own creation of 10+ years.

alxlu 4y ago

Is there any incentive to prevent a reviewer from just entering a pseudonym instead of their real name? It would be amusing if after the court order all the company received was "Test User was the one who wrote this review".

lumost 4y ago
In this day and age it’s worthwhile to assume that any data can be linked presuming that someone is motivated to do so. Glassdoor would probably be ordered to reveal ip address, and email. To block this the reviewer would need to use a one time anonymous email, and anonymous vpn. In turn, you can’t really trust either of those parties not to reveal your identity (although it might take more time). If I was to do something sensitive on such a site - I would use as many layers of indirection as I thought the companies legal team would be willing to expend in time. After 3-5 such proxies, it’s likely they would give up or at least have to expend 6 months to a year of legal effort to get to your actual identity. Note that in the above, financial contracts with email providers/etc will be a second method to de-anonymize you, and they are much faster to trace and much harder to avoid. Your best bet would be to get the free tier of every such service, and use a library computer/public Wi-Fi which does not require authentication and doesn’t have video recordings :shrug:

MichaelCollins 4y ago

Does anybody know if truth is an absolute defense against defamation lawsuits in New Zealand? From what I can determine, it is a defense but not an absolute one. It seems a public interest defense is also possible in New Zealand, but only since 2018 when that precedent was set.

itronitron 4y ago
I've read that 'honest opinion' is a defense in NZ so presumably if the toy company finds out the negative review is from an actual former employee then they will either stop pursuing it or just take legal action from China.

dalbasal 4y ago

>>"Even though the ruling occurred in a U.S. federal court, Judge Tse said he made the ruling based on New Zealand law, as Zuru intends to sue in that jurisdiction. Therefore, the court's ruling was decided based on New Zealand law's definition of defamation, and not the U.S. legal definition." that's confusing.

nimbius 4y ago
this seems suspicious. generally you seek out foreign courts when you want to set a precedent or touchstone for a favourable outcome in your court, or you want to cherrypick a legislative tome thats favourable to your case. this strongly suggests that had Zuru just litigated this in New Zealand, they would have lost.
- abduhl 4y ago
  Or, more likely, they intend to lose but also expect to take advantage of America’s rather unique legal procedures with expansive discovery powers (you can discover nearly anything in America) and, probably more importantly, the losing party doesn’t normally have to pay for the winner’s fees. The latter part is what I would do when trying to send a message to employees not to speak out: "do this and we will make you hurt even if we have to go international"
  - tiahura 4y ago
    (you can discover nearly anything in America) That really hasn’t been the case since the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were amended in 2015. The new rule requires that discovery be “neither unreasonable nor unduly burdensome or expensive, considering the needs of the case, prior discovery in the case, the amount in controversy, and the importance of the issues at stake in the action.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(g)(1)(B)(iii) (1983) https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/pretrial-practice-discovery/practice/2019/proportionality-has-some-bite/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/pre...
- jmull 4y ago
  I’m pretty sure this is just a matter of jurisdiction. Glassdoor is an American company. They probably had to sue in an American court to be able to legally compel them.

f1gm3nt 4y ago

GD is joke. I worked at a company that would relentlessly take down the negative reviews. Once hired, they would butter you up to get a positive review so any negative reviews they couldn’t remove would be offset. That’s when I lost all trust in GD.

maerF0x0 4y ago

First of all Glassdoor has, in my experience, been full of useless information. From seemingly intentionally depressing compensation information to observing employers frequently having email campaigns soliciting "positive reviews" (and positive ones only) to jump on Glassdoor "because it helps our hiring!" (you're part of the in group, right?) This kind of suit is particularly concerning because: 1. How could an individual ever expect to stand against a $400M ARR company? (presuming there is a positive correlation between legal spend and outcomes) 2. When companies do this, they're siphoning off profit created by labor, to silence and suppress labor's best interests such as freedom of speech, transparent views into what it's like to work there, freedoms/rights of action and behavior outside the 9-5/cubicle (figuratively speaking). The machinations of working class control working as designed. Edit: but I do recognize this is also part of incentives. Companies pay glassdoor, not reviewers. Perhaps we stop using sites incentivized to destroy us?

dvtrn 4y ago
observing employers frequently having email campaigns soliciting "positive reviews" (and positive ones only) I really want to see a larger conversation happening over this one day, but all I have are grumblings and ramblings. Nearly every job I’ve had in the last five years (3) has launched internal campaigns that heavily pushed the “please write us a review on Glassdoor!” Requests. And the language made it pretty clear they only wanted to see the good stuff. And by heavily I mean I have the distinct memory of counting how many emails I got in a single quarter with reminders that the deadline to send a review was coming up. That number was nine. Adding to this: on the SAME DAY that my most recent job (a startup in the Northeast) laid off myself and 30% of other staff, we got an email in our personal inboxes asking for Glassdoor reviews, and asking if we’d like to join an “alumni committee” that would go out and do “community events” and other similar outings that the company will almost undoubtedly be using in recruiting posts and imagery. It left me, someone who is already pretty cynical towards “workplace culture” at work even more cynical about the machinations of “workplace [mono]cultures”
- zeruch 4y ago
  "observing employers frequently having email campaigns soliciting "positive reviews" (and positive ones only)" I've seen this happen once, to the point where HR stepped in and said 'no, we don't do this!" to the execs that were pushing this. The irony was delicious.

rybosworld 4y ago

Most people here probably know this already, but Glassdoor sucks. They do all sorts of things to hide bad reviews and make companies look better than they are. This includes: - altering the weights of reviews - applying filters that hide unfavorable reviews - excluding reviews from the rating score altogether

nilsbunger 4y ago

> Even though the ruling occurred in a U.S. federal court, Judge Tse said he made the ruling based on New Zealand law, as Zuru intends to sue in that jurisdiction How can a US federal judge interpret New Zealand law? My mental model of the legal system is that a judge in the US would only make decisions based on US law.

ngc248 4y ago
Exactly, why is a US judge ruling by taking into consideration NZ law ... doesn't make sense
jeffbee 4y ago
U.S. federal courts are frequently called upon to interpret foreign law, and are presumed capable of doing so. They may not have practiced law in the given jurisdiction, but since federal judges are appointed there's no strong reason to believe they are qualified to interpret U.S. laws, either.
soderfoo 4y ago
See: International comity [1] (more like comedy, as my law school professor joked) My guess is that since this is a NZ company, that country's laws should apply, but Glassdoor being a US entity necessitates a US court applying (or enforcing) the law or judgment of NZ. For whatever strategic reason, their legal team sought a judgement in the US first. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comity More info for anyone interested: https://columbialawreview.org/content/international-comity-in-american-law/ https://columbialawreview.org/content/international-comity-i...
- NohatCoder 4y ago
  That is a comedy for sure. The particular ruling seems to run straight against the Californian libel tourism law of 2010, at the very least in spirit.
  - vanattab 4y ago
    Definitely not a lawyer, but I would think the counter argument might be their is no judgment from New Zealand yet so the libel tourism law would not apply. For example if after this guy is unmasked it turns out he is living in the USA and is found guilty in NZ but would not have been guilty in the USA then they would not order extradite/use us banking system to enforce the ruling. However if the he would have been found guilty in the U.S. (say he is the CEO of a competing company who never even worked for the company.) then the US would enforce the NZ judgment. It least that is my best guess

maximilianroos 4y ago

The headline here is — "if you care about the state protecting your privacy — don't live in New Zealand", rather than "...don't post on Glassdoor": From the opinion: > In New Zealand, statements of opinion are not categorically protected. New Zealand makes available a more limited protection, allowing the defendant in a defamation action to assert the defense of "honest opinion." ... The honest-opinion defense is an affirmative defense: the defendant bears the burden of proving that he honestly held the opinions he expressed. > Here, then, the question under New Zealand law isn't whether the reviews on Glassdoor.com were opinions, but whether, if they were opinions, they reflected the reviewers' honest opinions. That question can't be answered now. The reviewers haven't even been identified, much less appeared in court and offered evidence on the genuineness of their opinions. Zuru, at this point, just wants discovery—to learn who wrote the reviews.

thomascgalvin 4y ago
How exactly are you supposed to prove that an opinion was honestly held? If it was on the claimant to prove it was not, I guess I could see it; "hey, this guy said we're a nuclear waste dump in corporate form, run by men that make Jeffrey Dahmer look like a blessed saint, but here's all of his Facebook posts declaring his unending love for us!" But how do you prove you actually believe something? FMRI images from when you make the statement? Polygraph? Sworn testimony from your friends that you said the same thing frequently, and seemed honest when doing so? I have the same problem with "sincerely held religious belief" in America. You can't prove that a belief is sincerely held, and laws that reference this idea exist only to discriminate against unpopular faiths.
- MatthiasPortzel 4y ago
  The law uses intention and sincerity all the time. The easiest way to prove it in this case would be to subpoena statements made about the company in private, then compare them to the publicly stated opinion to see if there was a difference. If, for example, the person was a stakeholder in a competitive company and documented that they were trying to hurt the company, then it obviously wouldn’t be an honest opinion. I’m guess that’s what the New Zealand law is trying to make illegal. (Although in the US that would be legal as long as your statements were an opinion that someone could possibly hold (i.e. not factual lies).)

justinzollars 4y ago

"Let the Flowers Bloom!" [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign

time_to_smile 4y ago

I'm surprised anyone takes glassdoor remotely seriously anymore, and often wonder how they still exist. I once worked at an extremely toxic company, that derived pleasure from firing and threatening to fire people for any disagreement with "leadership". I remember looking at glassdoor to see if there was a warning there I missed when I accepted the offer. Monitoring it I noticed overall ridiculously high reviews, and only newer reviews where negative and made comments showing what I had observed. However rechecking in a few months I noticed those reviews were removed. Certain people in the company really enjoyed threatening people with lawsuits, so I wasn't interest in trying to fight the tide and leave my own negative review, assuming that they would go out of their way to id me. Still the fact that such an awful company could have such glowing reviews forever turned me off from glassdoor.

_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

LinuxBender 4y ago

Are tor hidden services fast enough yet to handle running an independent alternative to GD and would people be able to easily reach it? Do any browsers make it easy for the average worker to reach onion sites? Or perhaps a better question is, could there be a more distributed and decentralized alternative that is less prone to tampering by corporations, money and individual countries having overreach that the average person could still access? I'm thinking something like usenet but implemented in a way that doesn't get spammed to oblivion.

deleted 4y ago

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gpspake 4y ago

I think it would be funny if they went to all this trouble only to find that the user used a burner email address and account and posted from a coffee shop or something. I'm sure there's some verification or other PII required to post a review but the resulting headline if the order was essentially for nothing would be notable in and of itself.

barkingcat 4y ago

Glassdoor is always a strange concept. To give anonymous feedback, use your official work email to sign in... only a person who doesn't care about anonymity would do that.

flerchin 4y ago
That's Blind.

otikik 4y ago

This is as good as a time as ever to inform you that "Zuru" are the first two syllables of "Zurullo", whose most colloquial meaning in Spanish(ES-es) is "compact portion of human excrement expelled in one go".

smegsicle 4y ago
and i thought that germans were obsessed with poop

teawrecks 4y ago

> "Glassdoor wants to safeguard anonymous speech on its website. Zuru wants to protect its reputation. Both interests can’t simultaneously be accommodated." Accidental self-own?

outworlder 4y ago

This is a cautionary tale for everyone posting things "anonymously". Be it on Glassdoor or, even more worrying, Blind. One has no way of knowing what sort of data is in a company's database. Even if they take effort to anonymize your information, that may not be enough. Just assume that your identity is going to be revealed at some point and take steps to protect it.

IncRnd 4y ago

> Even though the ruling occurred in a U.S. federal court, Judge Tse said he made the ruling based on New Zealand law, as Zuru intends to sue in that jurisdiction. Therefore, the court's ruling was decided based on New Zealand law's definition of defamation, and not the U.S. legal definition. This is ridiculous. A US judge should not unmask someone's privacy on behalf of a company in NZ that hasn't filed a defamation lawsuit in the US against the poster. The NZ company should file a US case and then convince the judge to unmask the poster. This was social engineering on the part of the NZ company and was also Judge Tse overstepping his authority. There is no reason to even have laws in the US, when a judge can decide to apply foreign law that doesn't originate or cover people here.

lowbloodsugar 4y ago

>Glassdoor also posted an alert on the company's page, alerting users that Zuru has taken legal action and saying, "Please exercise your best judgment when evaluating this employer." Bahaha. Good job Zuru.

skeeter2020 4y ago

> Even though the ruling occurred in a U.S. federal court, Judge Tse said he made the ruling based on New Zealand law How can this possibly be allowed to exist? Can I file in my jurisdiction of choice and then bring along the most favourable laws from any others?

tolstoshev 4y ago

Reminds me of an adage that has served me well: "Write every email as if it will be one day read aloud in a deposition."