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Comment by ramosu | Hacker News Reader

I wrote a review once about a company (which was a big Glassdoor advertiser), but I said some bad things and they deleted saying it was spam.

I've tried to argue with them to understand why it was considered spam (I posted only once), but they couldn't explain.

So it became really hard for me to consider Glassdoor a trustful source of information.

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The problem is that there's a limited amount of total information available to candidates looking for company reviews, so (in my opinion) it's still wise to consider Glassdoor a useful source, with the caveat that it shouldn't be blindly trusted. It still gives useful signal.

I've heard mixed reports that this used to be the case but is no longer a major thing they do.

I think in the past few years they added some more credibly binding statements on their site about not removing or identifying user reviews. However, I don't know if this is actually the case or not.

Most platforms won't explain _why_ they considered something spam, as they believe it helps spammers avoid detection.

If they remove criticism if you pay them, couldn't they be prosecuted for extortion?

Yelp does the same, and has for ages.

BBB supposedly too.

BBB are the grand masters of extortion. They've been doing it before it was cool.

BBB are the grand masters of extortion. They've been doing it before it was cool. You know that "accredited" mark? It may as well be a dollar sign.

In my book, absolutely, it is extortion. Yelp definitely uses that business model.

I would guess that anyone who goes after them will probably suddenly experience a flood of “totally legitimate” one-star ratings, and those reviews would find their way into the court case as a means of discrediting the prosecution’s efforts.

Source: experienced this sort of tactic firsthand in a similar kind of dispute over reputation.

Whether it's extortion depends on whether the party asking for compensation has an "existing right" to the action and the compensation.

So it's fine to post a review of a restaurant and accept a voucher to remove it. It's even fine to post an honest review and say "I will remove it if we resolve our dispute by refunding me my meal".

But you can't threaten them with "unless you pay me 100x my damages, I will write horrible things about you", even if they're true, since you don't have an existing right to 100x your damages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn_Jackson is a good case for the boundaries here.

Can't wait for glassdoor to subpoena HN over this comment.

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