Users Ditch Glassdoor, Stunned By Site Adding Real Names Without Consent (arstechnica.com) 101
Readers waspleg and SpzToid shared the following report: Glassdoor, where employees go to leave anonymous reviews of employers, has recently begun adding real names to user profiles without users' consent.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Firefly (Score:5, Funny)
"Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"
The site previously known as Glassdoor (Score:5, Funny)
is about to become a broken window
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Re:The site previously known as Glassdoor (Score:4, Informative)
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I was told many times by fellow Republicans that if you aren't dong anything illegal you have nothing to hide and privacy should be illegal.
FTFY
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What democrats said this? House bills on privacy have passed, with democrat cosponsors and votes. Are you just repeating silly talking points from faux news sites?
Re: The site previously known as Glassdoor (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, that's the end of Glassdoor. The whole appeal was that you could bitch about your former employer in an anonymous way. Now that that's off the table, Glassdoor has no purpose whatsoever because people will be afraid of being honest, and honesty in this matter is critical.
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Re: The site previously known as Glassdoor (Score:5, Insightful)
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And if you are Donald Trump and you get bank loans based on dubious numbers yet your loans get paid back in FULL and nobody else lost any money ...
You're missing legal and factual implications of the bolded part, I guess. That's the crime, it's called fraud, using numbers you know are not right to obtain loans. It's illegal. And he got caught, charged, and convicted of that crime, fraud, and now has to pay back the difference in what he would have gotten vs what he did when he committed that fraud. That's the penalty in this case for breaking the laws of New York state. Financial institutions perform due diligence based on the statements that the appl
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Everyone, everywhere does self appraisals of assets with the most positive possible valuation in mind.
Except if you are filling in insurance or loan applications, where everyone sensible gives the accurate valuation that they can defend, normally based on having an actual qualified person do a valuation.
Fraud requires you be attempting induce someone to do something against their interest. The banks are sophisticated investors who no doubt had the ability and should have been making independent appraisals.
If you do an independent appraisal based on false data, as would have happened here, then your value will be wrong. Trump claimed to have 2500 houses where in fact there were only 500 houses built.
The specifics of this is that interest on loans gets paid based on Risk. If you have 2500 houses and you get a l
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Right he inflated things on some application forms essentially. For .. Deutsche Bank
One of the biggest and most sophisticated financial institutions in the world. They absolutely do their own due dilligence and they absolutely would not write a loan of that size with sending someone responsible to them to go look and take some photos of the properties and make at least their own rough appraisal.
What Trump did is more like talking up his opportunity to get the meeting than trying to put one over on anyone
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Your comment makes me honoured to have you consider me as a foe.
There's a really simple thing. At the time of taking out the loan, before DB had signed, had Donald told them that he only had 500 houses built, rather than 2500 on the property which was used as collateral and which he had declared to them had 2500. I suspect you know the answer which is why you start blustering.
That's a material fact in the valuation of his assets and there is no evidence that DB was ever aware of it. If they had been aware o
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It's ILLEGAL to lie about finances to get a loan, whether or not the other side likes you, and whether or not the loans were paid. What Trump did, and admitted to, was absolutely illegal no matter how much he waves his hands around. This was an issue of interest from BEFORE he ran for president, it is not politically motivated but instead motivated by the well known wheeling-and-dealing going on in the Trump org and rumors of shenannigans, from before MAGA even existed
The details of the trial were public,
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If you're honest and tell the truth but you can't prove it in court you may get smacked with a libel suit.
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If you're honest and tell the truth but you can't prove it in court you may get smacked with a libel suit.
If only being able to prove it in court were a sufficient defense. You may be bankrupt from legal fees before it gets that far...
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Re:just kill me already (Score:4, Insightful)
Just learn to enjoy the insanity and randomness.
Also do not use your real name on the internet for anything and assume every database on the planet is leaked on the internet and probably being secretly used by a society of bronies to fund their weird pony human hybrid projects.
Re:You gave them your real name? (Score:5, Informative)
From the summary, it sounds like they figured out your real name in a backhanded way.
Still... (Score:3, Interesting)
From the summary, it sounds like they figured out your real name in a backhanded way.
Kind of, but if I had ever posted to Glassdoor, then had a Fishbowl account auto-created after it merged with Glassdoor, I wouldn't have filled out anything and just stopped posting...
Still I feel this is a pretty big betrayal of the assumed anonymity of Glassdoor, and hope no-one is too screwed over by this. I am pretty happy I never posted to Glassdoor at this point, even though like I said I think I would have done enou
Re:Still... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ahem - "may update your Profile with information we obtain from third parties."
In other words, if they can get your name from somebody else, such as google, they can add it without you doing a thing.
How many people are going to sign up to a site and automatically use a different email address and anonymizing browser that can't be associated back to them?
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How many people are going to sign up to a site and automatically use a different email address and anonymizing browser that can't be associated back to them?
What is the population of Texas [slashdot.org]?
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That's installing a VPN, not using a completely disassociated email address and browser.
How would that link back if you'd been careful? (Score:1)
Ahem - "may update your Profile with information we obtain from third parties."
In other words, if they can get your name from somebody else, such as google
If you were posting on Glassdoor as "Captain Backdoor" just what exactly would they be pulling from anywhere (Google or otherwise) to link back to your real name?
The largest danger seems pretty obviously to be if you had been careful on Glassdoor but then filled in all kind of real info on Fishbowl and linked accounts.
If you posted on Glassdoor using your
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Email address, IP address, browser cookies, etc...
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Hence the private mode browsing (Score:1)
Email address, IP address, browser cookies, etc...
Why would anyone post on Glassdoor with an email address and not in private mode?
That right there is I would say at least 90% of posters. At least of the ones that had anything negative to say.
Maybe IP (I don't see as many people being careful about that) but even then, given someone's IP how are you really going to look that up? Not as simple as a Google search or tied directly to most things Google has.
Strikes me as unlikely
P.S. (Score:1)
How many people are going to sign up to a site and automatically use a different email address and anonymizing browser
I forgot to respond to this part, and my answer to that would be "Almost Everyone". I have to think 90% of people posting to Glassdoor would have used a throwaway email account at least, and also private browsing mode.
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Maybe of the slashdot population, but for regular users? Most of them don't really know how to make a throwaway email address, and private browsing mode isn't actually private on the distant end.
I'd flip the percentages. 90% would not, either out of ignorance or laziness.
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Maybe of the slashdot population, but for regular users? Most of them don't really know how to make a throwaway email address,
Glassdoor was always heavily technically slanted, and I really think you underestimate how many people can do this. There are tons of people that make throwaway accounts on Reddit all the time for example.
private browsing mode isn't actually private on the distant end.
It eliminates cookies as a factor though.
I'd flip the percentages. 90% would not
No way hose.
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Let's not pretend that Glassdoor went to great lengths to find names to accounts that lacked them. Even the summary says, a Fishbowl account was automatically created and required verification, which probably meant people had to provide a real name in order to keep their accounts, so they ended up giving Glassdoor their real name "voluntarily". People need to learn from mistakes, their own mistakes if necessary or other people's mistakes preferably. If what you write is worth reading, it's worth reading wit
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...and is that even enough? Every company you worked for is essentially public information these days, so even with only working at large companies two records with specific timeframes would often narrow you down to 30-50 people.
Oh come on, you can't be surprised (Score:5, Funny)
The site is called GlassDoor, not SolidWoodDoor for crying out loud...
Last office I saw with a glass door, you could see exactly who was behind and doing what.
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Right, because of course reasoning about a site based on its name is the smart thing to do. Either a dumb joke or bad reasoning.
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They made their money because they gave users the privacy required to feel OK sharing their experiences. Looks like they're pivoting the business model!
Dumb or nefarious. (Score:3)
Glassdoor acquired Fishbowl, ... 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.
So Glassdoor bought Fishbowl and the former changed their terms of service to match the latter? That's either dumb or an excuse to do something their users probably don't want. It would make more sense for either the Fishbowl terms to change or to not automatically out your Glassdoor users and give them the option of also having a Fishbowl account or an unlinked account, etc ... Anything other than completely changing the anonymous nature of the Glassdoor experience that makes it useful. As for me, I don't have an account with either and don't have any plans to.
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Following up ... TFA notes that user can still hide their personal information:
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.
But it's on them to be proactive about it. Even so, this also removes the option for users to not share their personal information with Glassdoor at all making that information available for legal actions and leaks, etc...
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.
Re:Dumb or nefarious. (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering the wide amount of software security issues and penchant for companies that already do shitty things to be shitty at other things, you are exactly one exploit away from being outed in a way that can short-term ruin your life.
I wouldn't want any of my data within 10 city blocks of these people after being this thoughtless.
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The flip side of this is that people could libel employers all day long on the site, hide behind their anonymity, while GlassDoor hides behind CDA-230.
Its not right GlassDoor can do a bait and switch like this and basically dox posters after the fact.
It was also not right that GlassDoor could even exist in the first place without being sued into a smoldering crater. Another good example of CDA-230 being bad for society. I used to support the EFF but about 20 years ago when it became entirely clear how corr
Dance like no one is watching (Score:5, Funny)
"Dance like no one is watching. Love like you've never been hurt. Email and post to social media like it will one day be read aloud in a deposition."
(apologies to Olivia Nuzzi)
Re: Dance like no one is watching (Score:5, Funny)
They told me to dance like no one is watching,
My court date is next month.
Terrible Reporting (Score:5, Interesting)
FTA:
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.
Ok, so people can see who left which review?
So down in paragraph 6:
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.
Ok, so it sounds like Fishbowl is a professional networking site requiring real names, and when they bought Glassdoor they started merging accounts (based on email addresses?) and so started associating real names with Glassdoor accounts that way.
So Glassdoor reviews are still anonymous (though the article goes to great lengths to avoid stating that simple fact) but users do have a very real concern that the information is there, and a breach / website bug could attach real names to the reviews.
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Perhaps you should say "still officially anonymous". If the information is in a corporate database, it's not safe to consider it secure. Consider:
1) leaks
2) hacking
3) subpoenas
4) botched updates
$) bankruptcy sale
6) being acquired by someone else
and I'm sure I've missed a few circumstances. Circumstances that appear in the news every week or so.
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And since I find the activity slightly repugnant to begin with, I don't really feel all that sorry for people who partake who get outed.
My boss and company are perfect. My brown nose is overt. No need for anonymity for us. Am i right, Rosco?
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Yeah I understand that denouncing bad employers anonymously can be useful.
It's just that I have close family members in Europe who got deported by neighbors who denounced them anonymously to the Gestapo. So I tend to take rather a dim view of people who denounce anyone regardless of the reason. I know it's not always a disgusting thing, but it always leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
As for letting a for-profit dox you, well duh... Those people should have taken precautions. Really...
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I have close family members in Europe who got deported by neighbors who denounced them anonymously to the Gestapo.
I can see where you are coming from on this. I think it's why we have the 6th Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Folks need to be able to face their accuser and have some kind of legal recourse. Both of which I'm sure were not afforded "undesirables" in pre-WW2 Germany. It's also similar to the bad situation where folks wanted anonymous snitch-lines for CV19 mandate violators or in Texas where they have a snitch-line for folks who assist in any way with an abortion. I'd definitely understand if that turned vi
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But that only works in legal matters. I (officially) there is no government involvement, the Constitution doesn't say anything.
The "(officially)" is because there is ALWAYS government involvement. The internet is managed by the FCC, etc. But I'm pretty sure that's not enough to cause a legal issue here.
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Well denouncing a company is very different to denouncing an individual. It's no different to a review of any product or service, and is important to anyone who might be considering purchasing (ie working there).
It's also important to be anonymous, as some companies can be petty and attempt punitive actions against people who leave negative reviews. That's also something i'd like to know before accepting a job offer, and i would try to avoid working for a company that took such punitive actions.
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you are a massive faggot.
honestly, i often agree with other things you post but, holy shit dude, think for a second or two..
This is peanuts (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine what will happen when 23andme is no longer funded by VC and other owner money, and is instead sold to the highest bidder, or even sold in parts as a part of bankruptcy procedures. All the genetic information alongside personally identifying information, free to be used as new buyer sees fit.
Reminder: treat everything you put on the internet as potentially public, unless it's something that is private by law with significant historic backing. I.e. health, banking, etc. Because everything else will leak, get hacked, get sold, get changed ToS, and so on. It's only a matter of time.
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This isn't 2015. Gays are now leaning conservative, as they're now considered as oppressors of transsexuals by insisting that sexual attraction to a specific sex is still biological and not a choice.
This is why you have movements like LGB alliance and such, who specifically note that they are diametrically opposed to the Ts.
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I agree that the folks who are currently called conservative have more similarity to the "Know Nothings" that to traditional conservatives. I've got a reasonable amount of respect for the conservatives that model themselves on Teddy Rooseveldt. Even the Rockefeller conservatives aren't total bags of shit. The current crop? I can't see even one redeeming feature.
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.... but Teddy Roosevelt was never conservative, not in the least bit? The man was extremely progressive, and did all sorts of social programs that led to horrible results - xenogenocide, collapse of economies, loss of property, and the near extinction of species. I can only assume you have no knowledge whatsoever of who he was - he was a progressive democrat who thought the democrats weren't progressive enough.
Rockefeller... likewise wasn't a conservative, and did not have conservative values by anyone's d
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Ts
I am fine with them. Knew one. Was an ok person.
What no one likes, are the crazy people on twitter who are making this way way way too big.
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I suspect Ts will be utterly fucked by the end of this chain of events. Pendulum will swing the other way, and lesbians who used to think they hate men in general discovered that they actually hate men who try to get them to suck their dicks because "man transitioned to a woman, suck that girl dick you bigot" way more.
It's been hilarious to watch the gay dating apps meltdown, after under the pressure from T activists allowed you to search specifically for Ts, but disallow to exclude them from your search.
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"man transitioned to a woman, suck that girl dick you bigot"
Jesus H, I was going to ask Luckyo how in any way Ts affect their life because it's such a small minority and it comes up so often, but god damn.
Luckyo, nobody can make you S a D no matter how bigoted you are, that's not right and I won't stand for it. Only S the D you want to when you're ready. Be strong!
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That cute with name calling and all, but it doesn't change the fact that we've even had court cases about male Ts demanding access to women only spaces, including lesbian meeting sites and chat apps.
Ts and their supporters are the bigots, as they're the ones looking to tell gays and lesbians that their inherent preferences are evil and they must suck the girl cock.
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> private by law ... health, banking, etc.
That doesn't seem to protect you from db hacks/leaks as we've seen. Haven't heard of any in the banking sector, but it's already started happening in the health sector.
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This only makes sense if you interpret "protection" as "immunity".
I've no idea why you would interpret it that way.
common sense (Score:1)
Don't leave anonymous comments in a place that knows your identity.
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It wasn't a place that knew their identity prior to the merger.
Tired of This Shit (Score:5, Insightful)
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Isn't part of all these Terms of Service that they can change them at any time? Absurd, of course. Just never give anyone any real data when you can help it.
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We need to gut the ability of corporations to constantly change the terms in which they operate. It should be relatively simple (famous last words) to create legislation that says that companies are bound by the terms of their own EULA which existed at the time that the data was collected. I only consented to providing certain data based on the "contract" we had at the time I provided it. If any company can later decide to change those terms to whatever they want, then the social contract completely breaks down. I mean, what the fuck is the point of even having an agreement if one party can later change it to be whatever they want whenever they want?
Then everyone's new EULA is "we can do anything we want with your data".
In theory you could make a law that says changes are explicitly opt-in, though again, knowing users that means 90% of your data is gone because many users will never log in again and again every EULA says "all your bits are belong to us!".
Then again, if the EULA is changed and you didn't opt-in then it's not clear to me that you couldn't sue the company for breaking the contract.
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They effectively already do whatever they want with your data by changing the terms later. At least requiring them to say it upfront would force them to be remotely honest about it.
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We need to gut the ability of corporations to constantly change the terms in which they operate. It should be relatively simple (famous last words) to create legislation that says that companies are bound by the terms of their own EULA which existed at the time that the data was collected. I only consented to providing certain data based on the "contract" we had at the time I provided it. If any company can later decide to change those terms to whatever they want, then the social contract completely breaks down. I mean, what the fuck is the point of even having an agreement if one party can later change it to be whatever they want whenever they want?
This is generally what data privacy laws do.
You can update you EULA all you want but nothing you write in a non-legally binding contract can override law. The problem is that in the US there are no laws against selling your private and personally identifiable data.
In short, I cannot give up my privacy by clicking an "I Accept" button... It's difficult to even sign it away, I can sign up for hundreds of thousands of pounds of debt easily, I can't allow the bank to use my PII how they see fit, use of PI
Who honestly used that garbage site anyway? (Score:3)
Glassdoor is an extortion racket. Companies pay $$$ to become an "engaged employer", i.e. to get the ability to squash the bad reviews and flood the site with fake good reviews. Especially after major events like mass layoffs. Since the fake reviews stay up and honest ones get removed, what's the point even reading any of them?
On top of that users are constantly info-walled - "oh you want to read reviews eh? better give up some personal info like your salary if you want to see it". Just constant demands for more and more information. This recent change to force users to agree with Fishbowl's terms makes it clear they're planning on being some kind of LinkedIn knockoff but somehow even worse.
Avoid it at all costs.
Re:Who honestly used that garbage site anyway? (Score:4, Insightful)
Glassdoor is an extortion racket. Companies pay $$$ to become an "engaged employer", i.e. to get the ability to squash the bad reviews and flood the site with fake good reviews.
So it's like Yelp for HR?
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Pretty much. Or Tripadvisor for HR - all these review sites start off being fairly useful and ultimately end up fucking over everybody for their cut.
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Glassdoor is an extortion racket. Companies pay $$$ to become an "engaged employer", i.e. to get the ability to squash the bad reviews and flood the site with fake good reviews. Especially after major events like mass layoffs. Since the fake reviews stay up and honest ones get removed, what's the point even reading any of them?
On top of that users are constantly info-walled - "oh you want to read reviews eh? better give up some personal info like your salary if you want to see it". Just constant demands for more and more information. This recent change to force users to agree with Fishbowl's terms makes it clear they're planning on being some kind of LinkedIn knockoff but somehow even worse.
Avoid it at all costs.
I've always seen it as a scam. Anything that requires me to create an account just to read reviews is clearly doing something dodgy.
This might be the stupidest thing I've ever read (Score:5, Insightful)
They just completely killed their entire product. I mean seriously it would have been cheaper and easier to just set fire to their servers then do something this balls to the walls stupid.
Did some billionaire order them to do this because he wants to shut the service down but doesn't want to take the heat from doing it?
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never read one of your own posts then?
Can't ditch (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe you can - Re:Can't ditch (Score:2)
Don't know it that will work in general but did work for me just now.
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You can - just give them fake info.
I just did and then immediately "deactivated" my account.
Damage control? (Score:2)
Another nail in the coffin (Score:2)
This will only kill them slowly on the long run (Score:2)
First, I had not realized Fishbowl went onto requiring full names in the first place. Haven't used them in a while, so maybe time to delete that one as well.
But what is Glassdoor thinking? And what will this policy serve?
When Google did something similarly stupid back in the day (remember Buzz?) they were sued for privacy violations and had to pay and accept a very long (still ongoing) outside oversight of their practices.
And this is on an area that is pretty sensitive. If Feds don't sue them (very busy try