Glassdoor will continue to allow users to anonymously sign up to review companies they have worked for, Glassdoor CEO Christian Sutherland-Wong confirmed.
The jobs community site was accused last week of revealing the identity of an anonymous user profile.
“Protecting anonymity is at the core of our mission and our pledge to our users,” Sutherland-Wong wrote in a press statement. “Recently, there has been some confusion around how we are maintaining anonymity on our platform with the addition of Glassdoor Community. I want to be clear: Anonymous posts on Glassdoor will always stay anonymous.”
The company launched Glassdoor Community last summer to enable professionals to connect for workplace conversations across careers, companies and industries. Glassdoor Community provides users with a choice to use their full name or to post anonymously with their job title or employer name. Users often vary their level of anonymity with each post and comment they make depending on the context, according to Sutherland-Wong.
Community users provide their name, job title and company name with Glassdoor during the sign-up process. However, if a user wants to participate in Community anonymously, they can do so.
“Glassdoor never reveals a user’s identity with any post in Community — users always get to decide what they want to share about themselves,” Sutherland-Wong wrote.
“Asking for names helps maintain the integrity of our Community by attracting people with genuine intentions and deterring fraud or bad behavior,” he stated. “It also helps serve as a powerful deterrent against trolls and users who might abuse anonymity to spread misinformation, harass others or engage in other toxic behaviors. When users know that their fellow Community members’ identities have been verified, they can feel more confident engaging in authentic discussions with real professionals.”