Glassdoor is now adding real names to user profiles without consent | Hacker News Reader

Glassdoor is now adding real names to user profiles without consent

teamblind.com

86 pointsmry41 comments

Related: Glassdoor updated my profile to add my real name and location (cellio.dreamwidth.org) | 819 points by throwaway_08932 6 days ago | 316 comments | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39705788

It's more than OK to lie to corporations and give them a fake name and email address. I do it every day. I've found this is the only way to actually protect your privacy.

I pity whoever owns nobody@nowhere.com because I've been using that for decades now

A sinister method is to state your birthday as Jan 2nd 1919. Just enough time to be remotely plausible. Bugs are sure to follow the account for the remainder of its existence.

I use fastmail with my own domains. I got a separate domain for myself that I use for trashmails.

I mean that's fine, but you are the registered owner 》renter of that domain, so you are linked to it in a database somewhere, even if your info is behind whoisguard-style obfuscation. Even if unlikely, should a dataset get exposed or the service stop functioning as intended, you're linked. No real worry for singing up for future junk-mail, but risks escalate when employment is at stake.

That’s fine. If they can’t deal with my real opinion it’s better to end that working relationship anyways.

Pro tip: always use example.com because then you are sure you are not spamming someone's inbox.

Sometimes form validation prevents that from working.

nobody@nowhere.com works 99.999% of the time

i can neither confirm nor deny that butts@butts.com has a wide presence on public wifi hotspots scattered across western europe.

That poor guy. He thought when he stopped using blah@blah.com he'd have it easy and look what happened.

No you can't - they can still link which is the whole problem. The advertising industry has built such a tracking apparatus that some part of your system, maybe even your browser audio, is going to give up your fingerprint.

Hm. Went to see if I have some long-forgotten account—yep! Try to deactivate account… but it’s been so long since I logged in that they won’t let me do anything until I answer a bunch of stupid questions including giving them my name.

Sigh.

[edit] it said the name would be used for “verification” (?!?!) but a fake name worked long enough to let me disable the account, anyway.

Instead of logging in, file a data erasure request: https://help.glassdoor.com/s/privacyrequest?language=en_US All it requires is verifying your email.

I just did, and received an email for each review I ever posted, I guess they are taking my reviews down.

I just ran into the same thing. Using Chrome dev tools I deleted the overlays prompting me to enter info and that revealed the user menu at the top right. First, I changed my email address to a throwaway address since I doubt they're deleting anything, and then I deleted it. ChatGPT thinks the direct link to the settings page is (or it's just a hallucination, I'm not sure) https://www.glassdoor.com/profile/settings_input.htm

Blind seems to be where tech people post reviews now. Non-tech people just use an alternative Google account and post the review on the company's page Google Maps reviews page.

> Blind seems to be where tech people post reviews now.

Yes. But if Blind starts doxxing its users, I think it will tank the industry. Lots of people are going to get fired.

This https://www.webworm.co/p/glassdoor should have convinced anyone to go ahead and delete all their data and account from Glassdoor.

I went to go log in to see what I had left there, first off it wouldn't let me see the one review I had written, and second I'm now stuck in a "community" popup that won't let me proceed without employment info.

Same here. I'm 100% sure I've added at least three Glassdoor reviews over the years, but after logging in, none are visible in my account.

I'm not sure if they got removed in their entirety, or if Glassdoor just disconnected them from my profile.

They made that change a while ago. When I first logged in and saw it, so began the illustrious Taco Bell food service career of Frank Offerman, known to his friends as "F. Off".

I was able to bypass the modal by going directly to the account setting page: https://www.glassdoor.com/member/profile/accountSettings

From there you can at least deactivate your account, not sure what other pages are also accessible without going through the modal.

Here is the form to delete your data and more: https://help.glassdoor.com/s/privacyrequest?language=en_US

I just went to the form. It states:

By clicking the checkbox you are allowing "Glassdoor to permanently delete or anonymize my data."

I'll bet you all the donuts they will not be deleting my data.

I don't like that they carved out a massive caveat with "or anonymized" either. Just pointing out their standard process.

> I'll bet you all the donuts they will not be deleting my data.

If you're in California (or the EU), I bet they will. Otherwise, you're free to file a complaint with the Attorney General. Wouldn't it be nice to have a federal CPRA?

Anyone else having form submission issue? I click "submit" but nothing happens.

I suspect their application may be hammered today.

I followed that link with two different browsers on my personal, one browser on my work-laptop - just getting a blank page.

Anyone else getting this? Any workarounds?

dooh! Switching to Private Window/Tab does the trick.

It's baffling that someone thought this was a good idea

I don’t get it.

Is the point of this change to get real people to delete their reviews in favor of the “fake” reviews made by companies to suppress wages?

So… instead of moderating fake flowery reviews from the HR, doxing real honest negative reviews to scare away people from leaving those. Saves them a ton of money and headache on moderation, verification and also disgrunted customers(employers).

[dupe]

More discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39761176

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39705788

Oh sure, when an individual doxes someone it's harassment, but when a company doxes people it's a growth mindset.

This should be illegal.

Buried: 141. Glassdoor is now adding real names to user profiles without consent (teamblind.com) 72 points by mry 1 hour ago | flag | hide | 33 comments

This is pretty plainly a terrible move, and might destroy them with lawsuits from the users who are able to show harm. (Though I think most of those harmed won't be able to prove it, nor even know for certain it's the reason for specific instances of harm to them.)

Interesting is that maybe prominent among those harmed by this underhanded privacy violation are... us techbros.

And it'll hit us where we feel it most, which is in our large salaries -- or lack of same, once we get fired for criticism speech on Glassdoor, and then HR hiring pipeline systems for some other jobs start denylisting our applications, for being a troublemaker who makes public negative comments about other employers on Glassdoor.

If experiencing this harm close to home -- to ourselves and friends/colleagues -- translates into conscientiousness when we're the ones making decisions about other people's privacy, then that's a silver lining.

More generally, you know how sometimes someone is harmed, and that person then goes on to harm others in the same way (as if inspired), but when a different person is harmed, they instead go on to defend others from harm (as if inspired)? It seems the latter person is better for society.

Why would they do this?

Class solidarity.

Money == Class Solidarity == Money

Gambling that human inertia leads to a platform with most of its original users but a much more scalable means to monetize them.

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