News this week that Glassdoor outed some of its users by publishing their names.
For those who don’t know what Glassdoor is, it’s a site where former or current employees can write reviews anonymously.
Disgruntled workers can tear the company to shreds behind the cloak of anonymity but would they be willing to say the same things if they had to put their name to it.
Probably not.
Given this, the online reputation of a company who’s harmed by allegations to which the substance of them isn’t verified.
According to Glassdoor they have a verification process but if you read the fine print, you see there isn’t much to this.
Using a proprietary verification process, we require users to verify who they say they are along with their professional identity, such as their employer, job title, and their industry. We also require email verification from a permanent, active email address, or a valid social networking account.
What this means is that a person can create a gmail account – firedemployer123@ gmail.com and this is good enough for Glassdoor to verify themselves. But if they write a review slamming a company and saying it’s a horrible place to work out, who’s verifying they actually worked there?
AsGlassdoor admits, Considering the reality of our digital age, we’re unable to fully confirm our users’ identities, the truthfulness of their contributions, or their employment status.
Given this, it’s hard to have much faith in the reviews but people tend to be gullible and believe everything they see. These reviews could have a serious impact on people’s livelihoods and Glassdoor will just put its hands up in the air.
Reviews are great – if they’re honest and genuine but unfortunately like with everything they’re gamed. This is the case with Rotten Tomatoes, Yelp, Trip Advisor and every other review site that exists.
There needs to be something better otherwise what is the point?