Users ditch Glassdoor, stunned by site adding real names without consent

Glassdoor, where employees go to leave anonymous reviews of employers, has recently begun adding real names to user profiles without users' consent, a Glassdoor user named Monica was shocked to discover last week.

"Time to delete your Glassdoor account and data," Monica, a Midwest-based software professional, warned other Glassdoor users in a blog. (Ars will only refer to Monica by her first name so that she can speak freely about her experience using Glassdoor to review employers.)

Monica joined Glassdoor about 10 years ago, she said, leaving a few reviews for her employers, taking advantage of other employees' reviews when considering new opportunities, and hoping to help others survey their job options. This month, though, she abruptly deleted her account after she contacted Glassdoor support to request help removing information from her account. She never expected that instead of removing information, Glassdoor's support team would take the real name that she provided in her support email and add it to her Glassdoor profile—despite Monica repeatedly and explicitly not consenting to Glassdoor storing her real name.

Although it's common for many online users to link services at sign-up to Facebook or Gmail accounts to verify identity and streamline logins, for years, Glassdoor has notably allowed users to sign up for its service anonymously. But in 2021, Glassdoor acquired Fishbowl, a professional networking app that integrated with Glassdoor last July. This acquisition meant that every Glassdoor user was automatically signed up for a Fishbowl account. And because Fishbowl requires users to verify their identities, Glassdoor's terms of service changed to require all users to be verified.

While users can remain anonymous, this change raises some potential concerns about data privacy and anonymity, Aaron Mackey, a lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told Ars.

The EFF regularly defends Glassdoor users from being unmasked by retaliating employers. Particularly for employees who fear retaliation for reviews, Mackey said that Glassdoor users could historically choose never to share their real names, and the company now storing names for all users makes it much more likely that users could be linked to their reviews should Glassdoor's data ever be subpoenaed or leaked. That's what had Monica so concerned, too.

"Glassdoor now requires your real name and will add it to older accounts without your consent if they learn it, and your only option is to delete your account," Monica's blog warned. "They do not care that this puts people at risk with their employers. They do not care that this seems to run counter to their own data-privacy policies."

Monica soon discovered that deleting her Glassdoor account would not prevent them from storing her name, instead only deactivating her account. She decided to go through with a data erasure request, which Glassdoor estimated could take up to 30 days. In the meantime, her name remained on her profile, where it wasn't publicly available to employers but it could be used to link her to job reviews if Glassdoor introduced a bug in an update or data was ever breached, she feared.

"Since we require all users to have their names on their profiles, we will need to update your profile to reflect this," one Glassdoor employee wrote while reassuring her that "your anonymity will still be protected."

"No one has the ability to see your user profile and the contents within it, meaning no one, including your employer, will be able to see your details," Glassdoor's employee wrote.

"I do not consent," Monica responded. "I would delete my account before allowing that."

In a privacy policy, Glassdoor says, "if we have collected and processed your personal information with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time," but Monica said Glassdoor did not give her the option and stored her name and recommended that she delete her account if she wanted her name removed. This would delete her reviews as well, employees confirmed. In response, Monica continued protesting the data storage, escalating her complaint to a Glassdoor manager who did not prove to be any more sympathetic than subordinates.

"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."

"You heard it from the manager of Glassdoor's community team: they treat all users equally badly," Monica's blog warned. "Soon my account will be gone. If you have one, you might consider doing the same."

Glassdoor defends populating user info

Glassdoor's spokesperson told Ars that Glassdoor does not comment on specific user accounts, only sharing a statement that does not seem to apply to Monica's situation.

"When a user provides information, either during the sign-up process or by uploading a resume, that information will automatically cross-populate between all Glassdoor services, including our community app Fishbowl," Glassdoor's spokesperson said. "When using Glassdoor and Fishbowl, there is always the option to remain anonymous. Users can choose to be fully anonymous or reveal elements of their identity, like company name or job title, while using our community service."

Monica told Ars that she never uploaded a resume or provided her name to Glassdoor. In her blog, she said that she would never share personally identifying information (PII) with the job review site because Glassdoor "storing my name along with that data puts me at risk."

"I pointed out that we've seen ample evidence that anybody with a juicy online database can be hacked, and the mere presence of that involuntary data was a problem," Monica's blog said.

"Data breaches are not uncommon these days, and anybody who works in tech knows that it's easy to introduce bugs when making software changes—and software is always undergoing change," Monica told Ars. "Even though reviews are supposed to be anonymous, having my name on the profile means that association is one JOIN away. That's a danger whether the threat is programming accidents or malicious attacks. And, frankly, a company with a policy of adding [personally identifiable information] without consent and over user objections is deeply concerning."

Mackey told Ars that there may be other risks to Glassdoor users. Employers could leverage real names or information used on Fishbowl to "potentially narrow and/or identify" Glassdoor reviewers. And the Fishbowl and Glassdoor data being combined means that information linking accounts could be subjected to legal requests, such as an employer subpoena or a law enforcement request for data.

Where before users "could take steps to make sure that no identifying information was in either of those things," that's "not the case now," Mackey said.

"I feel like what they're doing is sort of at cross purposes with the promises and goals of the Glassdoor review website," Mackey said. "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."

Glassdoor sometimes adds inaccurate information

Today, when a legacy user returns to the Glassdoor site or a new user signs up, Glassdoor prompts users to input Fishbowl information, explaining why the information is being collected.

Ever since Glassdoor's integration with Fishbowl, Glassdoor's terms say that Glassdoor "may update your Profile with information we obtain from third parties. We may also use personal data you provide to us via your resume(s) or our other services." This effort to gather information on Fishbowl users includes Glassdoor staff consulting publicly available sources to verify information that is then used to update Glassdoor users' accounts.

Basically, if Glassdoor discovers an inaccuracy in a user's profile, such as a typo or misspelling, it will update users' profiles without notifying the user. Glassdoor views this verification as necessary so that Fishbowl users can be confident that the people they meet on the professional network are who they say they are.

As Monica's blog spread widely online, another Glassdoor user, Josh Simmons, commented to confirm that Glassdoor had "already auto-populated details" on his account, too. But instead of correcting Simmons' information, Glassdoor seemed to be adding in mistakes to his profile.

Simmons, who requested to use his real name and share his employer information, is a managing director of Matrix.org Foundation. He discovered that Glassdoor had not only messed up his employer's name but also claimed that he was based in London, while he is actually located in California.

"It was bizarre, because I had never provided that information, and it was a somewhat incoherent mix of details," Simmons told Ars.

Like Monica, Simmons requested that Glassdoor delete his data rather than remain on a site that might update his profile without notifying him of potentially inaccurate changes.

Monica told Ars that Glassdoor deleted her data in a few days, much faster than the 30-day estimate. The process to request data erasure was "a little unclear but not too hard," Monica said. But the process of deleting her Fishbowl account was less clear.

Glassdoor's support team told Monica that the only way to delete information from her Fishbowl account was to "download the Fishbowl app and log in with either a social connection, your work email, or phone number to gain access to your account."

Because Monica did not want to give Glassdoor more information just to delete information, she opted not to log into that account. Instead, she said in her blog that she found a "workaround" by submitting a form to delete her personal data, which Glassdoor confirmed would also delete the account.

"I received a (robo) message from Glassdoor saying my data deletion has been processed, and I was logged out in my browser where I'd been signed in," Monica told Ars in an email. "I'm a little leery of trying to log back in to confirm it's gone (don't want them recreating/restoring anything). As far as I can tell, my account is gone now, which should mean the profile is gone."

Glassdoor vows to defend users’ anonymity

The EFF's Mackey previously represented a Glassdoor user after their employer, a cryptocurrency exchange, attempted to unmask them after leaving an unfavorable review. In this case and other cases, including as recently as last week, Glassdoor has joined the EFF in fighting back against these requests, shielding reviewers from potential retaliation.

"Glassdoor has been second to none, for more than a decade in defending its users anonymity and privacy," Mackey told Ars. "They regularly would try to get kicked out legal claims for their users' speech when they believe that the user had a First Amendment right to speak about their employer. And they have done incredible work."

That's why Mackey said it was "disappointing to see that Glassdoor" is seemingly taking its business in a "different direction" with Fishbowl.

"The fact that there's no clear separation between the data and users on Fishbowl and Glassdoor just seems problematic," Mackey told Ars.

Glassdoor's spokesperson told Ars that "Glassdoor is committed to providing a platform for people to share their opinions and experiences about their jobs and companies, anonymously—without fear of intimidation or retaliation."

"We vigorously defend our users’ right to anonymous free speech and will appear in court to oppose and defeat requests for user information," Glassdoor's spokesperson said. "In fact, courts have almost always ruled in favor of Glassdoor and its users when we’ve fought to protect their anonymity. With the addition of Fishbowl’s community features to Glassdoor, our commitment to user privacy remains ironclad, and we will continue to defend our users from employers who seek to unmask their identity."

But Mackey suggested that the Fishbowl side of Glassdoor "is potentially" making it riskier to contribute to the legacy confidential review side.

"It's just concerning that they would sort of change this business model and potentially... put some of their users in a difficult position of either being identified via a government subpoena" or "a data breach or some other data security problem," Mackey said.