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Users ditch Glassdoor, stunned by site adding real names without consent
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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Technology
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If I’m reading this correctly, they’re adding your name to your site profile, but that’s not visible and is not linked to your reviews.
That specificity makes the situation much less terrifying than the title alone would imply.
An accidental “bug” or data breach could cause these names to become public. Given today’s atmosphere of “Oopsie daisies” and hacks that happen with upsetting frequency, this is a very real thing to be concerned about.
As well as subpoenas from lawsuits / law enforcement.
The fact alone that they were storing your name in the first place means that was always possible. Frankly, this isn’t anything to be concerned about anymore than being concerned about trusting literally any private business that doesn’t publicly document their data retention practices and also subject themselves to routine audits. You should be concerned about that though by the way. But my advice is to not wait around for it to become obvious.
They weren't storing your name in the first place; they've acquired a new service 'blowfish' for which an account is automatically created for you if you currently or in the past have used glassdoor. Blowfish demands a real name to be used at all. (including to delete your account)
Ontop of this, after linking the two services on your behalf; glassdoor will now automatically populate your real name and any other information they can gleam from blowfish, your resumes, and any other sources they can find, regardless of whether the information is correct (users have reported lots of incorrect changes). This is new.
One gleans information.
One gleams the cube.
Finger missed the n key... Didn't mean to type gleam
Lol, i appreciate any chance to reference that weird 80s movie!
I’m looking at it from a perspective of intentionality. Careless? Definitely. A risk ? For sure. But the situation is still not as the title implies.
It could be hacked, or law enforcement could subpoena the data. Neither are even improbable events nowadays.
Sure, the headline doesn’t quite communicate every possibility or the complete spectrum of dangers, but that’s not the job of a headline. The job of a headline is to get you to click the link.
Risks that are already described.
The headline does it’s job getting clicks by making it sound like reviewers names may already be public.
If they have the information, it can be purchased, leaked, or linked to.
They do not need and should not have this info, especially without consent.
I was thinking about how this would happen and I remembered when signing up for services using Google login, I’d always get a list of information the website would have access to, including the name listed under the Google account. When I didn’t consent to that, I went back.
Now, is there a line somewhere between strictly getting a user’s consent and the user having an expectation of privacy? Yes, and they may have landed on the wrong side of it.
Suffice it to say, this is one of the reasons I prefer to sign up with an email address.
As is often the case with sensationalist media coverage