Can Companies Tell Who Wrote Reviews About Them on Glass Door?

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Founded in 2007, Glassdoor.com is an online "career community" with a database consisting of several meg company reviews, CEO ratings, salary reports, task interview reports and more.  But as both the Associated Press and the Wall Street Periodical phrased things – in articles published nearly three years apart – Glassdoor is a website where employees tin can "anonymously dish" on their companies and bosses.

There are obvious benefits to Glassdoor, which has a mission "To help people everywhere find jobs and companies they love."  Indeed, almost reviews and information submitted by employees – who certify their employee relationships and validate their email addresses – are legitimate.  However, this is non to say that all Glassdoor users respect the website'southward rules and, in plow, the companies and/or people they review.

In the website'due south Community Guidelines, Glassdoor states the importance of giving everyone a right to express their opinion "without fear of retribution."  Merely, as is often the case on the internet – in particular when anonymity is involved – such a policy leads a per centum of people to believe they can legally say anything (eastward.g. disparage companies or defame individual CEOs through false content).

Glassdoor editors do review every employee submission before each is posted on Glassdoor.com, then the website can filter out bad content before publication.  However, simulated reviews can yet make information technology through and upwards on the cyberspace, every bit some of our clients have experienced.

Flagging questionable content

Glassdoor prohibits false, misleading, defamatory and other "calumniating" conduct.  If the subject of a harmful review believes the content conflicts with Glassdoor'south Terms of Use or Customs Guidelines, they can flag the mail by clicking the "Inappropriate?" link, and it will then be reviewed by moderators, who will reply via e-mail.

However, Glassdoor notes "content decisions are inside our sole discretion and nosotros do not negotiate about our application of a guideline to our concluding decision as to whether or not a piece of content warrants removal."  In other words, if Glassdoor is asked to review potentially inappropriate or harmful content and its team makes the determination that the content should remain on the website, the company or executives harmed are likely out of luck.

Glassdoor does allow employers to respond to reviews personally, or as an official representative, by creating an employer account.  This is some other option, especially if Glassdoor is unwilling to remove a review.

Subpoenaing Glassdoor

Typically, a harmed party tin can issue a subpoena to a 3rd political party website for personally identifying data related to the poster of a review.  Glassdoor.com even provides information for how to properly result such a subpoena, which involves issuing a valid California subpoena on its registered amanuensis, CT Corporation (818 W. Seventh Street, Los Angeles, CA 90017).

Glassdoor purports to require that the requesting political party make a "proper legal showing to demonstrate that the user has waived their Offset Amendment privilege."

If a subpoenaing party is able to identify an bearding poster through the amendment procedure, that party can potentially contact the poster and convince him or her to edit or remove the content (or potentially amend the complaint and substitute them equally the defendant).

Courtroom orders

Since Glassdoor states it is not well-positioned to act as a finder of fact or estimate for factual disputes and it is protected from liability for user-generated content under the Communications Decency Act, one option for removing a imitation Glassdoor.com review is to obtain a court social club against a poster.

In its "Legal FAQ" department, Glassdoor notes that information technology "may defer to the relevant court" to decide whether particular content posted to the website would exist prohibited content (such as the aforementioned defamatory content) based on its Terms of Use.  Therefore, a court order that states certain content is fake and defamatory might be sufficient for Glassdoor to remove content.

Still, Glassdoor is non required to defer to a court or to follow a courtroom social club.  In either of these situations, if Glassdoor makes a decision non to pull content from its website, again, the harmed parties may be stuck.

Equally we have documented in other posts, search engines accept showed a willingness to accept most court orders and de-index links to data proven false.  Nevertheless, applying this arroyo to a harmful Glassdoor review makes less sense.

Fifty-fifty if Google, for case, honored a court order and was willing to de-alphabetize a Glassdoor review folio URL, this removal would hide all of the positive reviews about a company from the search results.  Plus, it would non stop anyone from going directly to Glasdoor.com and searching the company, a scenario more likely than someone seeking out a business on RipoffReport.com.

Generating more positive reviews

Needless to say, dealing with a faux review on Glassdoor is more than difficult than some other websites.  To assist combat a low rating or minimize the touch on of a faux review – not only after the fact only besides as a preventive measure out – employers listed on Glassdoor may wish to invite (simply not incentivize) employees or chore candidates to post reviews to gather honest feedback.

If nothing else, lawfully encouraging more reviews is probable to lead to more positive reviews and overcome the inherent sampling bias when there are fewer reviews equally well as a rating lowered by a imitation negative review.

For more information, contact Whitney Gibson at 855.542.9192 or wcgibson@vorys.com . Read more well-nigh the exercise at http://www.defamationremovalattorneys.com and follow @ WhitneyCGibson on Twitter.

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Source: https://www.vorys.com/publications-1444.html

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