11 ms·

Users say Glassdoor added real names to user profiles without their consent

254 points by cgoodmac 2y ago

ChrisArchitect 2y ago
[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39705788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39705788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39761176 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39761176
a_gnostic 2y ago
Posted previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39785815 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39785815
- stanislavb 2y ago
  Thanks.
yinser 2y ago
Where there’s smoke there’s fire and I’m sure they are also purchasing gigabytes of data from vendors as well
teekert 2y ago
Why would add your real name on such a website? I couldn’t read the article when rejecting the cookies (or it took very long) so maybe the answer is in there…
- thih9 2y ago
  The answer is in there: > One user, who goes by Monica, wrote in a post on her personal blog that Glassdoor added her name and the city where she lives to her Glassdoor profile following an email exchange with Glassdoor customer support, despite having never provided her name during the sign-up process some years earlier. Monica, whose last name we’re not publishing to protect her privacy, accused Glassdoor of getting her full name from the email she sent to customer support, which she says they added to her Glassdoor profile.
  - genewitch 2y ago
    Straight Talk wireless tirelessly attempted to get your mailing info and other such; any time you called them for any reason. It only took 2 questions before i went "do you need this? because you're not verifying anything i gave you before, since i didn't" I have no idea if it's still that anonymous.
elsadek 2y ago
I have just deleted my account.
type_Ben_struct 2y ago
That is really shitty behaviour, and bizarre. Glassdoor is only feasible if users can have trust that their feedback is anonymous. I really hope this has not harmed anyone, I'd imagine the lower rated companies are most likely to retaliate.
- prmoustache 2y ago
  The risk is not only retaliation by lower rated companies. It may make users virtually unemployable if HR starts using Glassdoor as a database of publicly critical people. Given the choice between engineer 1 who never posted anything bad against a company, and engineer 2 who posted critical comments, who would you hire?
  - type_Ben_struct 2y ago
    Agreed, but my point was that those that are lowest rated will likely have the worst cultures, and so would be *most likely* to retaliate. A company with a good culture would in theory be more likely to take any constructive feedback on board.
    - techcode 2y ago
      Being surrounded by "yes" people can only get you so far. Although it probably gets you further than the opposite extreme where everyone disagrees all the time. Personally having such info (critical reviews on previous employers) for a candidate, would be close to already having their answer for "Tell me about a time you had a challenge/problem/conflict at work" type of interview questions.
    - mulmen 2y ago
      It’s more dangerous than that. Even “good” companies use third party data and HR services to rank and disqualify applicants. If one of those services uses Glassdoor reviews as a signal even “good” employers could be unintentionally discriminating against applicants based on Glassdoor history.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
mulmen 2y ago
When I logged in on mobile web Glassdoor forced me into a signup flow for something called Communities which included asking for my employment status. I was able to time a stop before the full page load and navigate to the account page. If you log in first you can navigate directly to this URL without answering any questions: https://www.glassdoor.com/member/profile/accountSettings https://www.glassdoor.com/member/profile/accountSettings which will allow you to close your account. You then need to request they delete your data which can be done at https://help.glassdoor.com/s/privacyrequest?language=en_US https://help.glassdoor.com/s/privacyrequest?language=en_US
- mlrtime 2y ago
  Thank you, did you see on your second link there is a 'rectify my personal data'? Also, when I hit delete my personal data and hit the captcha, nothing happens. Garbage company all around.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
hayst4ck 2y ago
Glassdoor is a completely flawed premise. Employers have almost complete compensation data and because we value anonymity more than ability to negotiate, our data is flawed. Employers might well directly know what you got paid at your previous company. Many companies are able to purchase previous employment salary data, which I believe Equifax sells directly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753 Here is a great read about the tools companies have to suppress your wage for anyone who wants to be a little angry: https://www.pave.com/blog-posts/acquiring-option-impact-and-the-future-of-startup-compensation-data https://www.pave.com/blog-posts/acquiring-option-impact-and-... > At Pave, we spent the last two years building out a suite of 40+ integrations with HRIS, payroll, and equity management systems that connect directly with the source of truth for compensation data. We are thrilled to bring this technology to the Option Impact customer base and ensure that our combined customers will never have to fill out a manual survey again while gaining access to a persistent real-time network of compensation data. [pdf] https://advisor.morganstanley.com/the-hamilton-retirement-planning-group/documents/field/h/ha/hamilton-retirement-planning-group/MSAW_Option_Impact_Overview.pdf https://advisor.morganstanley.com/the-hamilton-retirement-pl... > Option Impact is free to eligible and participating companies through our give-to-get model. So if I understand correctly, almost all of our employers are providing our real time compensation data to an entity that then allows all other participant companies to graph and query. I find it outrageous that my employer could tell my compensation data to other companies, while simultaneously we live in a culture of "we shouldn't talk about compensation."
- klabb3 2y ago
  Isn’t it illegal in the US for an employer to share your compensation data with third parties? Or do they skirt the rules by “anonymizing” it? > we live in a culture of "we shouldn't talk about compensation." Yeah especially now that the cat is out of the bag, but restricted to employers. Such a data set should absolutely be made available to workers. Information symmetry is critical for a functioning market. And capitalists love markets, right?
  - aerhardt 2y ago
    Whether it’s anonymized or not, if this is real, it’s fucking dystopian.
klabb3 2y ago
Aren’t all the Yelps, Glassdoors and Trustpilots of the world all accepting money from companies to take down bad reviews and/or promote good-looking content? To the point of that being the main business model? I remember there used to be a lot of those claims coming up a few years ago, from credible sources. I don’t trust any review sites these days, especially star ratings. At most I’ll skim through and look for what appears to be authentic reviews with quirky writing, shitty photos and such. However, that’s going away soon too, thanks to AI.
- tbdenney 2y ago
  Yes, that is their business model -- it's surprising more people don't understand this. I know from experience regarding Trustpilot and Glassdoor specifically. FWIW, in my personal experience TrustPilot seemed to be a touch more interested in accuracy on managing the reviews, but that was a few years back.
wisienkas 2y ago
Can anyone summarize how this breaks or does not break european GDPR?
- misja111 2y ago
  Excellent question. I would say that this breaks GDPR principle #2, 'purpose limitation'. See e.g. https://www.cyberpilot.io/cyberpilot-blog/data-protection-principles-the-7-principles-of-gdpr-explained/#:~:text=If%20your%20company%20handles%20personal,Integrity%20and%20Confidentiality%3B%20and%20Accountability https://www.cyberpilot.io/cyberpilot-blog/data-protection-pr....
e40 2y ago
Founder of small company. Of 16 reviews, only 1 is not fake. Really hard to believe they are mistakenly attached to my company. Many are negative, too. Glassdoor seems like a complete scam to me.
tbdenney 2y ago
As a marketer who helped manage various companies' reputation online, I can tell you that Glassdoor is pay-to-play. If you pay them the subscription fee, and you get negative reviews, whether "true" or not, you can challenge most and get them removed. I thought most people would understand their business model explicitly relies on getting companies to pay a fee to own their page (and in turn they have to keep those customers happy by removing reviews they don't like) but I continue seeing recruits relying on this site as if it's some unbiased source of info.
- Jenk 2y ago
  I can confirm this experience. At a previous job the management team (of which I was a member) would regularly review glassdoor reviews as part of our employee and candidate feedback. We had a healthy attitude toward employee satisfaction, but someone noticed you can flag a review as disputed (or "under review" or whatever the term is) and whilst it remains in this state, it is hidden from search results. Even for what I considered a team with a good attitude toward company culture, the temptation was too much and it soon became standard practice to flag every negative review asap. Some were unflagged after we reviewed them and we literally couldn't dispute the review but lots were just left as flagged. The same practice is true of yelp and tripadvisor reviews. They are cyber-racketeers.
  - smsm42 2y ago
    For Tripadvisor, I see that my negative reviews from years ago (not that many - I am pretty easy to please, but occasionally a hotel or restaurant falls below even my low standards) are up and visible. It could be the owners just don't care but I also see a number of negatives on other properties I looked at. So I don't think this is the same.
Sparkyte 2y ago
Glassdoor also doesn't report actual income and wages in the field as a way to help lowball the brackets. I once saw it say a Senior Backend Developer was only worth 120K... I was shocked considering I know Amazon will pay you up to 250 with bonus.
- cylemons 2y ago
  Amazon would be an outlier wouldn't it?
  - Sparkyte 2y ago
    Not really, most businesses pay above Glassdoor rates.
AlienRobot 2y ago
Classic mistake. This is why you should never type your real name into a website that you don't wan >One user, who goes by Monica, wrote in a post on her personal blog that Glassdoor added her name and the city where she lives to her Glassdoor profile following an email exchange with Glassdoor customer support, despite having never provided her name during the sign-up process some years earlier Wait, what. This is just grotesque and unethical. You do NOT go around fixing other people's profiles. You do NOT edit other people's posts. This is a huge breach of trust for any platform that handles user inputted information.
dang 2y ago
Employer Review Site Glassdoor Deanonymized Users Without Consent - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39785815 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39785815 - March 2024 (18 comments) Glassdoor added real names to supposedly anonymous profiles - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39777752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39777752 - March 2024 (23 comments) Glassdoor is now adding real names to user profiles without consent - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39769166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39769166 - March 2024 (40 comments) Users ditch Glassdoor, stunned by site adding real names without consent - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39761176 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39761176 - March 2024 (31 comments) Glassdoor updated my profile to add my real name and location - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39705788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39705788 - March 2024 (310 comments)
jonathanstrange 2y ago
LOL, for a moment I thought this was about a new office glass door with built-in semitransparent smart display.
Wally232 2y ago
I am delighted to share my incredible experience with the recovery company LINUX CYBER SECURITY that assisted me in recovering funds from a fraudulent investment scheme. After falling victim to a fake investment, I was devastated and unsure if I would ever see my hard-earned money again. However, upon reaching out to this recovery company, { info@linuxcybersecurity.com } www.linuxcybersecurity.com }my hope was restored. Their team of experts demonstrated unparalleled skill and dedication in recovering various cryptocurrencies, including USDT, BTC, Ethereum, and even private keys.
geniium 2y ago
Very happy to have not put my feedback on that app!
avicusbaldwin 2y ago
[flagged]
joeljanicki845 2y ago
[dead]
dianekenneth 2y ago
[dead]

254 points by cgoodmac 2y ago

[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39705788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39705788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39761176 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39761176

a_gnostic 2y ago

Posted previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39785815 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39785815

stanislavb 2y ago
Thanks.

yinser 2y ago

Where there’s smoke there’s fire and I’m sure they are also purchasing gigabytes of data from vendors as well

teekert 2y ago

Why would add your real name on such a website? I couldn’t read the article when rejecting the cookies (or it took very long) so maybe the answer is in there…

thih9 2y ago
The answer is in there: > One user, who goes by Monica, wrote in a post on her personal blog that Glassdoor added her name and the city where she lives to her Glassdoor profile following an email exchange with Glassdoor customer support, despite having never provided her name during the sign-up process some years earlier. Monica, whose last name we’re not publishing to protect her privacy, accused Glassdoor of getting her full name from the email she sent to customer support, which she says they added to her Glassdoor profile.
- genewitch 2y ago
  Straight Talk wireless tirelessly attempted to get your mailing info and other such; any time you called them for any reason. It only took 2 questions before i went "do you need this? because you're not verifying anything i gave you before, since i didn't" I have no idea if it's still that anonymous.

elsadek 2y ago

I have just deleted my account.

type_Ben_struct 2y ago

That is really shitty behaviour, and bizarre. Glassdoor is only feasible if users can have trust that their feedback is anonymous. I really hope this has not harmed anyone, I'd imagine the lower rated companies are most likely to retaliate.

prmoustache 2y ago
The risk is not only retaliation by lower rated companies. It may make users virtually unemployable if HR starts using Glassdoor as a database of publicly critical people. Given the choice between engineer 1 who never posted anything bad against a company, and engineer 2 who posted critical comments, who would you hire?
- type_Ben_struct 2y ago
  Agreed, but my point was that those that are lowest rated will likely have the worst cultures, and so would be *most likely* to retaliate. A company with a good culture would in theory be more likely to take any constructive feedback on board.
  - techcode 2y ago
    Being surrounded by "yes" people can only get you so far. Although it probably gets you further than the opposite extreme where everyone disagrees all the time. Personally having such info (critical reviews on previous employers) for a candidate, would be close to already having their answer for "Tell me about a time you had a challenge/problem/conflict at work" type of interview questions.
  - mulmen 2y ago
    It’s more dangerous than that. Even “good” companies use third party data and HR services to rank and disqualify applicants. If one of those services uses Glassdoor reviews as a signal even “good” employers could be unintentionally discriminating against applicants based on Glassdoor history.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

mulmen 2y ago

When I logged in on mobile web Glassdoor forced me into a signup flow for something called Communities which included asking for my employment status. I was able to time a stop before the full page load and navigate to the account page. If you log in first you can navigate directly to this URL without answering any questions: https://www.glassdoor.com/member/profile/accountSettings https://www.glassdoor.com/member/profile/accountSettings which will allow you to close your account. You then need to request they delete your data which can be done at https://help.glassdoor.com/s/privacyrequest?language=en_US https://help.glassdoor.com/s/privacyrequest?language=en_US

mlrtime 2y ago
Thank you, did you see on your second link there is a 'rectify my personal data'? Also, when I hit delete my personal data and hit the captcha, nothing happens. Garbage company all around.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

hayst4ck 2y ago

Glassdoor is a completely flawed premise. Employers have almost complete compensation data and because we value anonymity more than ability to negotiate, our data is flawed. Employers might well directly know what you got paid at your previous company. Many companies are able to purchase previous employment salary data, which I believe Equifax sells directly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753 Here is a great read about the tools companies have to suppress your wage for anyone who wants to be a little angry: https://www.pave.com/blog-posts/acquiring-option-impact-and-the-future-of-startup-compensation-data https://www.pave.com/blog-posts/acquiring-option-impact-and-... > At Pave, we spent the last two years building out a suite of 40+ integrations with HRIS, payroll, and equity management systems that connect directly with the source of truth for compensation data. We are thrilled to bring this technology to the Option Impact customer base and ensure that our combined customers will never have to fill out a manual survey again while gaining access to a persistent real-time network of compensation data. [pdf] https://advisor.morganstanley.com/the-hamilton-retirement-planning-group/documents/field/h/ha/hamilton-retirement-planning-group/MSAW_Option_Impact_Overview.pdf https://advisor.morganstanley.com/the-hamilton-retirement-pl... > Option Impact is free to eligible and participating companies through our give-to-get model. So if I understand correctly, almost all of our employers are providing our real time compensation data to an entity that then allows all other participant companies to graph and query. I find it outrageous that my employer could tell my compensation data to other companies, while simultaneously we live in a culture of "we shouldn't talk about compensation."

klabb3 2y ago
Isn’t it illegal in the US for an employer to share your compensation data with third parties? Or do they skirt the rules by “anonymizing” it? > we live in a culture of "we shouldn't talk about compensation." Yeah especially now that the cat is out of the bag, but restricted to employers. Such a data set should absolutely be made available to workers. Information symmetry is critical for a functioning market. And capitalists love markets, right?
- aerhardt 2y ago
  Whether it’s anonymized or not, if this is real, it’s fucking dystopian.

klabb3 2y ago

Aren’t all the Yelps, Glassdoors and Trustpilots of the world all accepting money from companies to take down bad reviews and/or promote good-looking content? To the point of that being the main business model? I remember there used to be a lot of those claims coming up a few years ago, from credible sources. I don’t trust any review sites these days, especially star ratings. At most I’ll skim through and look for what appears to be authentic reviews with quirky writing, shitty photos and such. However, that’s going away soon too, thanks to AI.

tbdenney 2y ago
Yes, that is their business model -- it's surprising more people don't understand this. I know from experience regarding Trustpilot and Glassdoor specifically. FWIW, in my personal experience TrustPilot seemed to be a touch more interested in accuracy on managing the reviews, but that was a few years back.

wisienkas 2y ago

Can anyone summarize how this breaks or does not break european GDPR?

misja111 2y ago
Excellent question. I would say that this breaks GDPR principle #2, 'purpose limitation'. See e.g. https://www.cyberpilot.io/cyberpilot-blog/data-protection-principles-the-7-principles-of-gdpr-explained/#:~:text=If%20your%20company%20handles%20personal,Integrity%20and%20Confidentiality%3B%20and%20Accountability https://www.cyberpilot.io/cyberpilot-blog/data-protection-pr....

e40 2y ago

Founder of small company. Of 16 reviews, only 1 is not fake. Really hard to believe they are mistakenly attached to my company. Many are negative, too. Glassdoor seems like a complete scam to me.

tbdenney 2y ago

As a marketer who helped manage various companies' reputation online, I can tell you that Glassdoor is pay-to-play. If you pay them the subscription fee, and you get negative reviews, whether "true" or not, you can challenge most and get them removed. I thought most people would understand their business model explicitly relies on getting companies to pay a fee to own their page (and in turn they have to keep those customers happy by removing reviews they don't like) but I continue seeing recruits relying on this site as if it's some unbiased source of info.

Jenk 2y ago
I can confirm this experience. At a previous job the management team (of which I was a member) would regularly review glassdoor reviews as part of our employee and candidate feedback. We had a healthy attitude toward employee satisfaction, but someone noticed you can flag a review as disputed (or "under review" or whatever the term is) and whilst it remains in this state, it is hidden from search results. Even for what I considered a team with a good attitude toward company culture, the temptation was too much and it soon became standard practice to flag every negative review asap. Some were unflagged after we reviewed them and we literally couldn't dispute the review but lots were just left as flagged. The same practice is true of yelp and tripadvisor reviews. They are cyber-racketeers.
- smsm42 2y ago
  For Tripadvisor, I see that my negative reviews from years ago (not that many - I am pretty easy to please, but occasionally a hotel or restaurant falls below even my low standards) are up and visible. It could be the owners just don't care but I also see a number of negatives on other properties I looked at. So I don't think this is the same.

Sparkyte 2y ago

Glassdoor also doesn't report actual income and wages in the field as a way to help lowball the brackets. I once saw it say a Senior Backend Developer was only worth 120K... I was shocked considering I know Amazon will pay you up to 250 with bonus.

cylemons 2y ago
Amazon would be an outlier wouldn't it?
- Sparkyte 2y ago
  Not really, most businesses pay above Glassdoor rates.

AlienRobot 2y ago

Classic mistake. This is why you should never type your real name into a website that you don't wan >One user, who goes by Monica, wrote in a post on her personal blog that Glassdoor added her name and the city where she lives to her Glassdoor profile following an email exchange with Glassdoor customer support, despite having never provided her name during the sign-up process some years earlier Wait, what. This is just grotesque and unethical. You do NOT go around fixing other people's profiles. You do NOT edit other people's posts. This is a huge breach of trust for any platform that handles user inputted information.

dang 2y ago

Employer Review Site Glassdoor Deanonymized Users Without Consent - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39785815 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39785815 - March 2024 (18 comments) Glassdoor added real names to supposedly anonymous profiles - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39777752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39777752 - March 2024 (23 comments) Glassdoor is now adding real names to user profiles without consent - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39769166 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39769166 - March 2024 (40 comments) Users ditch Glassdoor, stunned by site adding real names without consent - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39761176 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39761176 - March 2024 (31 comments) Glassdoor updated my profile to add my real name and location - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39705788 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39705788 - March 2024 (310 comments)

jonathanstrange 2y ago

LOL, for a moment I thought this was about a new office glass door with built-in semitransparent smart display.

Wally232 2y ago

I am delighted to share my incredible experience with the recovery company LINUX CYBER SECURITY that assisted me in recovering funds from a fraudulent investment scheme. After falling victim to a fake investment, I was devastated and unsure if I would ever see my hard-earned money again. However, upon reaching out to this recovery company, { info@linuxcybersecurity.com } www.linuxcybersecurity.com }my hope was restored. Their team of experts demonstrated unparalleled skill and dedication in recovering various cryptocurrencies, including USDT, BTC, Ethereum, and even private keys.

geniium 2y ago

Very happy to have not put my feedback on that app!

avicusbaldwin 2y ago

[flagged]

joeljanicki845 2y ago

[dead]

dianekenneth 2y ago

[dead]