Panic as Glassdoor begins revealing ‘anonymous’ users’ real names on employer review website

The leading employer review website is facing a crisis of confidence among users after it was accused of betraying their anonymity to bosses.

Glassdoor, which has 2.5 million employer profiles, has built its fortune on allowing people to anonymously leave online reviews of their workplace.

But the company is facing some scathing reviews after being accused of adding users’ real names to some profiles, putting them at risk of retaliation from the companies reviewed.

“Big mistake,” user Monica wrote after seeing her own name added to her profile.

“They don’t care that this puts people at risk to their employers, they don’t care that this seems to violate their own data privacy policies.”

The company is now accused of breaching trust and endangering users’ anonymity

The employer review site is now attracting some scathing online reviews of its own

The company began requiring full names, job titles and employer information from new users in July.

Previously, users could only use the website with an email address, but the switch was made after Glassdoor acquired work app Fishbowl and began integrating its features into the site.

Existing users who tried to log in were told that ‘entering your real name is required to verify your profile’, but were reassured that ‘other users will not see your name unless you choose to share it’.

Monica claimed in one detailed blog post that after she emailed Glassdoor about an “account-related issue,” she discovered that the company had extracted the real name and location from her email and added it to her account profile without her permission.

‘I received a response from the ‘lead, content and community team’ telling me that although they were ‘required’ to add my name to my profile, this would not affect the anonymous reviews I had in the past had posted,” she wrote.

‘Well, I hope not! But still, I said, storing my name and that data puts me at risk.

“I pointed out that we’ve seen plenty of evidence that anyone with a juicy online database can be hacked, and the very presence of that involuntary data was a problem.”

The warning horrified many of Glassdoor’s 55 million monthly users, who long assumed anonymity gave them the safety to leave honest and candid accounts of workplaces to potential employees.

Some pointed out that anonymous reviews are always a recipe for abuse

‘An insanely bad move. Rip Glassdoor,” Chris Noel wrote.

“How to remove Glassdoor comments asking for lots of friends,” added Mick Baccio.

“As a very infrequent user of Glassdoor, shouldn’t the entire purpose of their site be to allow anonymous reviews of work environments?” @waldorfsixpence asked.

Glassdoor told users it must now verify identities to “ensure our users can have authentic, candid conversations with other professionals, colleagues and business leaders in a safe space.”

Some admitted that anonymity has its own drawbacks, allowing malicious assessments of disgruntled employees and astrological assessments of the companies themselves.

“When it comes to business reviews, the site’s value will collapse,” Shawn Augsburger wrote.

“To be honest, you had to take them with a grain of salt because I know some organizations were deliberately creating fake positive reviews.

“On the other hand, it was never clear to me that they actually did much to verify that the reviewers actually worked there.”

This is what a Glassdoor spokeswoman said Wired that Fishbowl’s purchase meant sharing user information across its platforms, but users retained the option to remain anonymous.

“When a user provides information, either during the sign-up process or by uploading a resume, that information is automatically posted across all Glassdoor services, including our community app Fishbowl,” she wrote.

“Users can choose to be completely anonymous or reveal elements of their identity, such as company name or job title, while using our community service.”

But others despaired at the difficulty of keeping private information private online

“I’m so glad I never posted anything of value on Glassdoor and deleted my information there, but now have to figure out how to expand that request to ‘affiliates,'” Bruno J. Navarro tweeted.

“Well done, everyone.”

“I want to delete my Glassdoor account but only have the option to deactivate,” @mwallaby93 added.

“You have to provide your first and last name to contact Glassdoor, which is why I want to take it down in the first place.”

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