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Users say Glassdoor added real names to user profiles without their consent

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Re: Users say Glassdoor added real names to user profiles without their consent

#21

Post by klabb3 »

Aren’t all the Yelps, Glassdoors and Trustpilots of the world all accepting money from companies to take down bad reviews and/or promote good-looking content? To the point of that being the main business model? I remember there used to be a lot of those claims coming up a few years ago, from credible sources.

I don’t trust any review sites these days, especially star ratings. At most I’ll skim through and look for what appears to be authentic reviews with quirky writing, shitty photos and such. However, that’s going away soon too, thanks to AI.

Re: Users say Glassdoor added real names to user profiles without their consent

#24

Post by tbdenney »

As a marketer who helped manage various companies' reputation online, I can tell you that Glassdoor is pay-to-play. If you pay them the subscription fee, and you get negative reviews, whether "true" or not, you can challenge most and get them removed. I thought most people would understand their business model explicitly relies on getting companies to pay a fee to own their page (and in turn they have to keep those customers happy by removing reviews they don't like) but I continue seeing recruits relying on this site as if it's some unbiased source of info.

Re: Users say Glassdoor added real names to user profiles without their consent

#25

Post by klabb3 »

aerhardt wrote: post #20
klabb3 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t it illegal in the US for an employer to share your compensation data with third parties? Or do they skirt the rules by “anonymizing” it? > we live in a culture of "we shouldn't talk about compensation." Yeah especially now that the cat is out of the bag, but restricted to employers. Such a data set should absolutely be made available to workers. Information symmetry is critical for a functioning market. And cap…

Whether it’s anonymized or not, if this is real, it’s fucking dystopian.

Yes, but merely a reflection and reminder of a dystopian reality that already permeated society long ago. It’s obvious that if they are allowed they would. The faster people drop the illusion that corporations[1] have emotions and “care” and such, the better people can protect themselves, organize and rebalance the scales I guess.

[1]: A generalization. There are more amoral, faceless self-perpetuating machines than just corporations, and there are many small- and medium sized companies that may be incorporated while maintaining human decency.

Re: Users say Glassdoor added real names to user profiles without their consent

#26

Post by tbdenney »

klabb3 wrote: post #21

Aren’t all the Yelps, Glassdoors and Trustpilots of the world all accepting money from companies to take down bad reviews and/or promote good-looking content? To the point of that being the main business model? I remember there used to be a lot of those claims coming up a few years ago, from credible sources. I don’t trust any review sites these days, especially star ratings. At most I’ll skim through and look for wh…

Yes, that is their business model -- it's surprising more people don't understand this. I know from experience regarding Trustpilot and Glassdoor specifically. FWIW, in my personal experience TrustPilot seemed to be a touch more interested in accuracy on managing the reviews, but that was a few years back.

Re: Users say Glassdoor added real names to user profiles without their consent

#27

Post by Sardtok »

hayst4ck wrote: post #16

Glassdoor is a completely flawed premise. Employers have almost complete compensation data and because we value anonymity more than ability to negotiate, our data is flawed. Employers might well directly know what you got paid at your previous company. Many companies are able to purchase previous employment salary data, which I believe Equifax sells directly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753 Here is a gr…

In Norway you can lookup anyone's tax information. You can see who looks up your tax information, though, it is publicly available as long as you log on to government sites.

So basically everyone's salary from two years back is public information. It is often used by the press to check how much the richest people pay in taxes (or rather how badly they contribute by dodging taxes).

I've never heard of employers using it to check candidates' salaries, though. They usually just ask as part of the interview process.

Re: Users say Glassdoor added real names to user profiles without their consent

#28

Post by randomcarbloke »

klabb3 wrote: post #19
hayst4ck wrote: post #16

Glassdoor is a completely flawed premise. Employers have almost complete compensation data and because we value anonymity more than ability to negotiate, our data is flawed. Employers might well directly know what you got paid at your previous company. Many companies are able to purchase previous employment salary data, which I believe Equifax sells directly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753 Here is a gr…

Isn’t it illegal in the US for an employer to share your compensation data with third parties? Or do they skirt the rules by “anonymizing” it? > we live in a culture of "we shouldn't talk about compensation." Yeah especially now that the cat is out of the bag, but restricted to employers. Such a data set should absolutely be made available to workers. Information symmetry is critical for a functioning market. And cap…

If I think I get paid more than you in the same role it's absolutely in my interest to keep that information from you. With departmental budgets in mind, you receiving a raise may limit the total compensation available to me when I negotiate my own.

Re: Users say Glassdoor added real names to user profiles without their consent

#29

Post by doktrin »

Sardtok wrote: post #27
hayst4ck wrote: post #16

Glassdoor is a completely flawed premise. Employers have almost complete compensation data and because we value anonymity more than ability to negotiate, our data is flawed. Employers might well directly know what you got paid at your previous company. Many companies are able to purchase previous employment salary data, which I believe Equifax sells directly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29834753 Here is a gr…

In Norway you can lookup anyone's tax information. You can see who looks up your tax information, though, it is publicly available as long as you log on to government sites. So basically everyone's salary from two years back is public information. It is often used by the press to check how much the richest people pay in taxes (or rather how badly they contribute by dodging taxes). I've never heard of employers using…

Norwegian tech salaries are relatively standardised and skew low (sometimes very low) by US standards, so certainly in a decent to good market there isn’t that much burning incentive for a company to volunteer themselves to the front page of VG just to save a handful of crowns.

Re: Users say Glassdoor added real names to user profiles without their consent

#30

Post by Sparkyte »

Glassdoor also doesn't report actual income and wages in the field as a way to help lowball the brackets. I once saw it say a Senior Backend Developer was only worth 120K... I was shocked considering I know Amazon will pay you up to 250 with bonus.
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