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.

Comments

Teach your children

[fustakrakich]

Never put your real name on the internet. Use burner accounts for everything.

Re:Teach your children

[fustakrakich]

If they were actually anonymous users, the company won't be able to unmask them. Most likely they were registered users that posted anonymously. And if they used their real names, they will get burnt.

Re:Teach your children

[BitterOak]

If they were actually anonymous users, the company won't be able to unmask them. Most likely they were registered users that posted anonymously. And if they used their real names, they will get burnt.

I don't think it will make any difference whether they used their real names or not. If they used an offshore VPN they might have a chance, but never underestimate the resourcefulness of government investigators. It's a lot harder to be anonymous on the Internet than you might think.

Re:Teach your children

[Lord Kano]

That's mostly true but anonymity is mostly possible. It's just difficult.

Tails, free WiFi, a little OpSec, a little discipline and throw away email addresses can keep you ahead of pretty much anyone other than a TLA.

LK

This is a tough one

[ClickOnThis]

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?

Re:This is a tough one

[sheramil]

What I don't understand is why the Glassdoor posters must be revealed but the name of the company is a secret. Have we entered into an alternate universe where corporations have a higher level of rights than humans?

Not at all. We are still in the ordinary, everyday quotidian universe. Where corporations have a higher level of rights than humans.

Re:Anonymity

[Motherfucking Shit]

Yes.

By the by, most terrorists are already known to law enforcement by the time they do whatever it is they're going to do. How many times have we heard "the FBI had previously investigated the suspect" or "British counter-terror officials had been monitoring the attacker for several years?" Anonymity isn't really the issue, and even if it were, I'm not going to live my life afraid of terrorists.