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Glassdoor not so anonymous

webworm.co

131–140 of 507 posts

Re: Glassdoor not so anonymous

#131
> As for their first point, statements of “pure opinion” are protected by the First Amendment in America. But New Zealand doesn’t have this. Statements of opinion are not categorically protected. Instead, it all comes down to “the honest-opinion defense”.

This is the most surprising part of this article to me. Not the NZ one, but the US one.

Does this mean you can say whatever you want in the US without risking be labeled libel? What if you're a victim of it (NOT saying in this case, but in general like personally)?

Re: Glassdoor not so anonymous

#132
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s a managed corporate laptop that uses Chrome, then they could remotely check the browser history, likely directly to the review itself.

Are you sure this is possible? I thought managed google accounts didn't allow admins to access browsing or any other history.

If they have managed Google accounts they probably have admin on your device as well.

Re: Glassdoor not so anonymous

#134

> As for their first point, statements of “pure opinion” are protected by the First Amendment in America. But New Zealand doesn’t have this. Statements of opinion are not categorically protected. Instead, it all comes down to “the honest-opinion defense”. This is the most surprising part of this article to me. Not the NZ one, but the US one. Does this mean you can say whatever you want in the US without risking be la…

> Does this mean you can say whatever you want in the US without risking be labeled libel?

No. The question of whether a claim is of opinion or fact is itself an objective question of fact. “Donald Trump is an evil man” is a opinion claim, and cannot be libel.

“Donald Trump murdered his bastard son” is a fact claim and could (potentially) be libel.

Re: Glassdoor not so anonymous

#135
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does Glassdoor actually have any business operations or webservers in NZ that are subject to this order? The court order itself is from a california court. They can't just tell that court to fuck off.

But why is a US court telling Glassdoor to do something because of a New Zealand law?

I read the ruling. It is apparently because of this law in the US statutes: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1782 which authorizes a judge to "order [some person] to produce a document or other thing for use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal ... The order may be made ... upon the application of any interested person"

It is mostly up to the judge's discretion, but case law establishes 4 discretionary factors to consider: 1) whether the request is from a potential lawsuit participant, 2) nature of the tribunal 3) whether discovery can be obtained by other means, and 4)whether compliance is burdensome.

Re: Glassdoor not so anonymous

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glassdoors business model is selling the ability to take down bad reviews. Why would they out their customers?

Semi-related scheisty Glassdoor anecdote: I worked at a company Foo which appeared as 2 separate companies on Glassdoor: Foo, and separately Foo Technology. Foo Technology unambiguously did not exist as a separate company in any form. Thing is, Foo was the unlikely company where the line workers were more satisfied than the Technology employees - the company overall was very decent but the technology org was toxic. A…

A company I used to work for did something almost exactly the same. Makes me wonder how often companies do this to skirt negative reviews.

Re: Glassdoor not so anonymous

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DNS records of your VPN or corporate work station would be pretty easy. You can line then up with when the review was posted. Then investigate their workstation more "thoroughly".

If it’s a managed corporate laptop that uses Chrome, then they could remotely check the browser history, likely directly to the review itself.

If you sign into a personal Google account on a new Chrome profile on a managed laptop, can they get access to your entire Google account (drive, emails, etc.) remotely? Can they use an auth token or something to automate the process of downloading all your data? If so, is this legal?

Re: Glassdoor not so anonymous

#138
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DNS records of your VPN or corporate work station would be pretty easy. You can line then up with when the review was posted. Then investigate their workstation more "thoroughly".

This is a good example of why not to do personal stuff on your work machine or work network. If you care at all if your company would see it, _don't_ do it anywhere near their hardware.

Actually, since Glassdoor's protection can obviously be compromized, anyone posting on their site should do so with Tor Browser, which anonymizes access by routing traffic through a minimum of three relays in the "dark web" of the Tor network. It might also be wise to do this on a public WiFi network (not your own ISP or mobile data provider).

Any email provided to Glassdoor should be a burner on a service that is not one of the majors (no gmail) also set up with Tor browser, specifically for Glassdoor (and used for no other purpose).

Finally, the text that is posted should be somewhat disguised if possible, with altered vocabulary, atypical slang, and distinctly different grammar and sentence structure. Any facts that can reveal identity should be removed.

Under no circumstances should a native Android/iOS app be used to post or access any such review.

It sounds like we will have examples soon of what happens without these precautions.

I imagine that many reviews will be coming off Glassdoor's site rather soon.

Re: Glassdoor not so anonymous

#139

This is interesting but a more accurate title would be "New Zealand law allows corporations to sue Glassdoor for user data." As the article notes: > statements of “pure opinion” are protected by the First Amendment in America. But New Zealand doesn’t have this. Statements of opinion are not categorically protected. That said, the warning that Glassdoor adds to the pages of companies that do this has to be the biggest…

Certainly makes you wonder about their current stellar rating.

Re: Glassdoor not so anonymous

#140

This is interesting but a more accurate title would be "New Zealand law allows corporations to sue Glassdoor for user data." As the article notes: > statements of “pure opinion” are protected by the First Amendment in America. But New Zealand doesn’t have this. Statements of opinion are not categorically protected. That said, the warning that Glassdoor adds to the pages of companies that do this has to be the biggest…

Actually, this subpoena is possible because of this US statute: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1782

Edit: there is even a Wiki page for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_1782_Discovery

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