“Frankly, a company with a policy of adding [personally identifiable information] without consent and over user objections is deeply concerning.”
Many of us are active here on SellersAskSellers because Amazon decided–without consent and over user objections–to dox the Amazon Seller community members who had previously been able to ask and answer questions, voluntarily help others by disclosing non-confidential but also non-identifiable business details, share tips and best practices, discuss Store suspensions, and get honest help on the old Amazon Seller Forum…anonymously.
For reasons that had precisely zilch to do with the best interests of Sellers or “strengthening the Seller community” Amazon changed the terms under which their Sellers had provided actual support, for free, on their own time–without our consent and over our objections.
And at every reasonable and accurate Seller objection, Amazon seemed to delight in trying to gaslight us about what was happening, and why–not to mention the many known bad actors (and their forum sock puppet accounts) attempting logic acrobatics to portray those of us raising legitimate concerns into whining snowflakes who were the root of the ASF behavior problems, instead of themselves, while simultaneously making public and private retaliatory threats for imaginary injustices against fictional boogeymen.
And where are they today? Not posting on the NSFE.
Glassdoor changed their terms without the consent of their users when they merged with Fishbowl. They now claim to continue to champion their users’ anonymity, but who can trust them after this? They (like Amazon) are putting their own users–and their own platform–at risk, no matter why and how they try to spin it.
I sincerely hope that Glassdoor users run far away, taking their years’ worth of data and reviews with them, leaving it an empty shell of a platform. (NOTE: I do not and have never had a Glassdoor account. Thankfully.)
All Glassdoor users now must have Fishbowl accounts and are involuntarily looped into Fishbowl’s identity verification and PII terms. Without consent or opt-out notifications.
Truly, the people are the product.
This story is a little bit blowing up. You can see here since this AT article went out less than a day ago (pink highlight in bottom right, because I read it; most recent top left), what subsequent news articles have come out–and that doesn’t include blogs, vlogs, and social media posts.
And here’s the Futurism article from today that makes these good points, also applicable to the NSFE, but also significantly magnified on Amazon because any logged-in user–whether operating legitimately, currentky, in good faith (or not)–can see all Amazon Store names even merely associated at one time with any forum handle:
While those reassurances [from Glassdoor] might have convinced less privacy-savvy users, experts are concerned that if subpoenaed or hacked, Glassdoor’s database of corporate ■■■■-talking could be used to punish employees.
Neither possibility is far fetched. Glassdoor has already been legally forced to unmask employees who left negative reviews. And who could forget life-ruining hacks like when Ashley Madison, a site for cheating spouses, got all its data stolen and publicly leaked.
IMO, only “less privacy-savvy users,” bad actors hoping to exploit doxxing, and the corporations making a profit off PII could possibly defend something like this–just like the Amazon NSFE, where the cheerleaders were either Amazon staff acting disingenuously or users wanting to use the info for various harms.
The idea of leaving “anonymous” feedback and requiring identity verification for your account do not go together.
This also has some serious consequences. If I were a manager and one of my employees was leaving negative reviews online about my company, they would never get another promotion and they’d be at the top of the list when it comes layoff time. Whether that’s legal or not I don’t know, but any (documented) reason for actions taken against them would be for some performance reason, not as retaliation for their review. Likewise, if a prospective hire is going around badmouthing their former employers online, that would be held against them as well.
If you want people to be honest you can’t out them and get them in trouble at their job.
