Glassdoor, the American website where current and former employees anonymously review companies, has begun recording real names. This policy change risks exposing the identities of anonymous users if there is a subpoena or hack.
My opinion is you can’t make any assumptions now. If a company has your information, they’ll just do whatever they feel like and regulators will let them get away with it.
From the article:
“I stand behind the decision that your name has to be placed on your profile and it cannot be reverted back to just your initials or nullified/anonymized from the platform,” Glassdoor’s manager wrote, confirming that Monica’s case was now considered closed. “I am sorry that we disagree on this issue. We treat all users equally when it comes to what is eligible to be placed on the profile and what is not, but we know that there are times our users, such as yourself, may not always agree with us.”
Although I completely understand the problems that can come with pseud/anonymous reviews (see: Google Reviews), this is really underhand, and surely cuts out part of the core proposition that Glassdoor offers up to users - here is a place you can praise the good, point out the bad, without any consequences for current or future employment.
“If Glassdoor’s purpose is really to empower employees to speak candidly about a variety of things that might occur in their work—whether that’s the compensation, whether it’s the working conditions, whether it’s harassment or other workplace abuse—having the potential for your name to be associated with it, and having no choice but to provide Glassdoor with a real name is a problem. And it seems sort of counter to the whole values and animating purposes of Glassdoor’s website.”
Yeah, looks like either fewer reviews going forwards, or fewer bad ones.