Company review site Glassdoor has apparently begun adding people’s full names, and other personally identifiable information (PII) to user profiles without their consent, and expectedly, users are fuming.
For the uninitiated, Glassdoor is a website where people write reviews of their previous and current employers, bosses, and companies. As one might expect, the reviews are often negative, as they discuss toxic company culture, shady practices, and more. For that reason, people enjoyed their anonymity on Glassdoor, creating user profiles that held no concrete information about who they were.
Rightfully so, too, as there were reports of companies trying to discover the identities of people who left bad reviews about them, possibly looking to retaliate in one way or another.
Glassdoor doxxing is a part of user experience
But three years ago, Glassdoor acquired Fishbowl, a network for professionals, not unlike LinkedIn. It was integrated with the review site last year, meaning that every Glassdoor user also got a Fishbowl account.
However, the network demands people verify their identities, and the data is being combined. Consequently, people with anonymous Glassdoor accounts suddenly found themselves doxed, thanks to data pulled from Fishbowl.
Not giving their consent for this also makes no difference. One user explicitly demanded not to be doxed this way, and Glassdoor denied the request, saying the only solution would be to terminate the account and request all the data to be deleted. The entirety of this user experience can be found in Ars Technica’s writeup here.
As expected, the people were not happy. Commenting on Ars Technica’s article, one user said, “How to kill your own business and destroy years of trust invested in you by your users in one easy step”, while the other described Glassdoor’s move as “spectacularly stupid”.
Glassdoor has evidently made a change in direction with Fishbowl. How it reflects on its overall business, remains to be seen.
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