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Judge Rules That Government Can Force Glassdoor To Unmask Anonymous Users Online (arstechnica.com)
pogopop77 shares a report from Ars Technica: An appeals court will soon decide whether the U.S. government can unmask anonymous users of Glassdoor -- and the entire proceeding is set to happen in secret. Federal investigators sent a subpoena asking for the identities of more than 100 anonymous users of the business-review site Glassdoor, who apparently posted reviews of a company that's under investigation for potential fraud related to its contracting practices. The government later scaled back its demand to just eight users. Prosecutors believe these eight Glassdoor users are "third-party witnesses to certain business practices relevant to [the] investigation." The name of the company under investigation is redacted from all public briefs. Glassdoor made a compromise proposal to the government: it would notify the users in question about the government's subpoena and then provide identifying information about users who were willing to participate. The government rejected that idea. At that point, Glassdoor lawyered up and headed to court, seeking to have the subpoena thrown out. Lawyers for Glassdoor argued that its users have a First Amendment right to speak anonymously. While the company has "no desire to interfere" with the investigation, if its users were forcibly identified, the investigation "could have a chilling effect on both Glassdoor's reviewers' and readers' willingness to use glassdoor.com," states Glassdoor's motion (PDF). The government opposed the motion, though, and prevailed in district court.
Several former coworkers posted about how we don't allow non-Asians to take time off. I'm glad I didn't post anything about that.
... perhaps we should remove the "Coward" part?
Never put your real name on the internet. Use burner accounts for everything.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The company under investigation is Slashdot. The anonymous tipsters revealed their shady business practices including posting repurposed press releases on the front page ("slashvertisements"), inflating story count by posting the same story numerous times ("dupes") and fraudulently claiming to employ competent editors who are actually illiterate millennials.
Do you have a right to anonymity online? When we lived in the physical world instead of the virtual one, it was possible to express opinions and leak information through a media that was made of paper. Now, the online world provides all kinds of avenues to provide confidential information and criticism, but if the courts make it so protections don't apply online, then I guess people will have to return to the traditional methods.
I understand Glassdoor's argument about protecting the privacy of their users, and the chilling effect that losing pseudonymity would have.
On the other hand, it sounds like these users may be witnesses to a crime of fraud. That seems to favor the government's case for talking to them.
If only the users in question could be deposed in the case without having their identities revealed. IANAL -- Is there a way to do this?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
A deposition requires an opportunity for cross-examination by defendant lawyers.
It was Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory with the Candlestick.
Now hat I've testified, no need for a trial. Hang them all.
In the bigger scheme of things, a Glassdoor that allows leaks reduces fraud. But killing the site (and similiar sites) means that in future there will be no users to disclose.
Courts need to focus on the public good in general and not just on one particular case.
They only want 8 people. Let the users notify Glassdoor if they are willing. Then Glassdoor passes on the contact information of the willing people. Easy.
Any chance whistleblower "protections" could apply? Just wondering...
I wonder, what secrets the judge is hiding? Shouldn't we know?
I was in charge of a very large library system. In 20xx (I don't want to be specific), the Chief Technical Archivist issued me a directive: Purge all logs with personally identifiable information after 7 days that the transaction closed. EG: Any books checked out, that record's PII was to be deleted after 7 days of checking it back in.
The patron's record showing how many books they checked out was to be purged as well - EG: reset to zero for any but books currently checked out.
Only aggregate data was to be retained. Daily transaction logs were to be purged immediately - which was a pain in the neck, because that meant the system had to be shut down for a full cold back up every day - which could not be kept for more than a few days. (I solved this issue by using RAID 50 and splitting the RAID mirror, then backing it up, then resyncing the mirror. That way it was "cold", but the system was down for only a few seconds.)
On my personal sites, I set the log files to /dev/null, and only log when I have a issue (technical or user).
Time to get our snoopy government out of our hair. They must be forced to stop shoving their nose in our crotch with indiscriminate abandon. Am I against prosecuting crime? Not at all. But I'm not in favor of our government being able to snoop into every breath we take, every penny we spend, every call we make, every text we have. "They hate us for our freedoms" - what a FSCK'ing JOKE.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
In the bigger scheme of things, a Glassdoor that allows leaks reduces fraud. But killing the site (and similiar sites) means that in future there will be no users to disclose.
Courts need to focus on the public good in general and not just on one particular case.
But the public good is served poorly if the claims that Glassdoor's users bring forward aren't tested in the courts.
I get that Glassdoor's mission isn't to expose the malfeasance of companies its users once worked for -- it's to offer a clearing house for comments on the culture of companies, to benefit potential new employees. But surely, the worst of those companies will undergo a special kind of scrutiny that includes what we're discussing here. Whether Glassdoor likes it or not, they will need to cope with companies that break the law, and whose former employees talk about it on their site.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Given how unreliable witnesses are compared to actual documented evidence, and given that the company in question is likely to attack the credibility of the witnesses based on the fact that "they said mean things about their former coworkers anonymously like the KKK!", why is the government so insistent on this?
These prosecutors act like spoiled children.
"You can't go into that door"
"I DEMAND TO BE LET INTO THAT DOOR!!!"
"There's nothing in there! And if you open it, you'll let the dog out and I'll have to chase it down the street!
"NOWNOWNOWNOW!!!"
The right to anonymity of these people must be guaranteed by the state. Same as if they were mafia stoolies. With an added penalty to redress the loss of revenue to Glassdoor by having people turned off engaging in its process in case they are outed, in the case that the anonymity of the witnesses is broken.
This may mean that anything directly from these people is inadmissable, but that can still be used to investigate something that IS admissable evience.
I know the groupthink is strong, but please think for just a moment. If you were trying to keep people pensioners frrom being screwed by fraud, would you tell the crooks that it's time to immediately destroy evidence? I suppose that even you are smarter than that.
the extent of those consequences has traditionally been very tightly controlled by law. I can't, for example, fire someone for expressing their belief in Judaism. There's also tremendous protection for newspaper sources that all go out the window when it's on the internet.
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Evil knows no bounds
Collapsed.
I think that engineering a truly anonymous "report fraud, interface" and inviting its users to submit content, without appealing to any user in general might be win-win.
If some of the folks who see the fraud come forward, then the government can proceed with its fraud case without having to sue glassdoor.
This also give whistle-blowers a trustable third party that isn't some random nation-state puppet like wikileaks, that is a responsible and effective way to resolve corporate wrongdoing while minimizing retaliation. As a professional, such a service would make me trust glassdoor more, not less. Knowing they fought for my privacy would make me trust them more not less. Knowing they aren't federal, but their entire economic value proposition drives them to both protect me and to properly and discretely connect me and folks who can deal with wrongdoing properly would make glassdoor have higher brand value. I do not trust the government to do what is just or right, whether it is ruled by democrats or republicans, they are all "bought" and all corrupt. I might trust a company when their value-proposition is on the line if they don't act with hightest ethical standards.
Too bad glass door is not turning this to a great marketing campaign, and setting themselves up as a single-source of authoritative reporting that isn't the Gawker media of whistleblowing. It could be win-win, right?
So, the Gawker case boiled down to privacy vs. journalism. I use the term journalism loosely here as I don't know who considers a sex-tape actual journalism and I never looked at Gawker, but from what I heard, it was lifestyle crud. Still, I guess that could be journalism in one sense. In that case, the money- I mean the verdict, went to privacy. Although if you want privacy, why would a semi-celebrity make a tape of their private moments, when leaks of anything nowadays occur all the time? Anyway...
Now, in this case, Glassdoor, whatever they are, not really journalism, more a service company, utilizes privacy in order to protect First Amendment rights. A criminal investigation is under way and the govt. wants to trample First Amendment and recently recognized privacy in order further the investigation. This is all turning into an ugly game of dominoes for average citizens who utilize their First Amendment and privacy rights. wtf...
But notice the nature of those cases. None of them involve the Govt wanting something from you, the citizen. In cases where the Govt wants something of yours--information, property, money--the Govt gets a less generous with its view of your "rights." Stated simply, when it REALLY CARES, the Govt gets what it wants.
The only time a whistleblower gets protection is when he or she is providing the Govt info it WANTS.
That means in almost all cases, the whistleblower is ground meat.
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http://www.santacruzbynight.com/index.shtml Santa Cruz By Night Vampire Larp
You cannot expect that any identifying information you provide to any website (or any business, online or not) will be kept confidential.
It's the law.
No such thing in reality as "whistleblower protections".
In the real world if you whistleblow expect never to work in that industry again. Hell, you'll have a problem getting any kind of job again because you're a liability. Your employer can't trust that you'll put their welfare above everything else and they can find a lot of people who will to hire.
So hope you can make a bundle on the movie rights and book deal or can start your own business, 'cause you'll never get a serious job again.