"Policy changed": anonymous employer review site Glassdoor has started de-anonymizing employees

The platform for publishing anonymous reviews about employers, Glassdoor, has started adding real names to user profiles without their consent.

As a result, some openly call for deleting their account and data on the site.

One of the first to seriously worry about the issue was a user named Monica. She shared her story in a personal blog.

Why did this happen?

For many years, Glassdoor allowed users to register anonymously.

But in 2021, Glassdoor acquired Fishbowl. In July, it was integrated with Glassdoor. This meant that every Glassdoor user automatically received a Fishbowl account. And since Fishbowl requires users to confirm their identity, the terms of use for Glassdoor have changed.

What is saved cannot be deleted

Monica joined Glassdoor about 10 years ago, leaving several reviews about her employers. However, this month she contacted customer support to request the removal of some publicly available information.

She did this because in Glassdoor's privacy policy it is stated: “If we have collected and processed your personal information with your consent, you can delete it at any time”.

Instead, the Glassdoor support team, after her request, took her real name that she provided in her email and added it to her profile.

“Since we require all users to have their names in their profiles, we will need to update your profile,” one of the Glassdoor employees wrote to her.

The company itself assures that the employer does not see this personal information.

This is despite Monica repeatedly and directly refusing to have Glassdoor keep her real name: “I would delete my account before allowing this”.

However, the company refused her request.

After deletion, the profile becomes deactivated and is not visible to employers. But even after the profile is deleted, personal data remains on the site.

Therefore, after this, the girl filed a request to delete her data. The data deletion period is 30 days. Potentially, during this time, a certain failure or data leak may occur.

“Glassdoor now requires your real name and will add it to old accounts without your consent. Your only way out is to delete your account…,” she admitted.