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Google Maps No Longer Lets You Post Negative Reviews About Your Crappy Job (gizmodo.com.au)

Posted by msmash on from the avoiding-conflicts dept.

From a report: Google has updated its Maps policies to ban certain business reviews left by former employees. In a new section of the Google Maps "User Contributed Content Policy," Google now labels reviews "about a current or former employment experience" as a "conflict of interest." Originally, only current employees were barred under the policy. The new rules, quoted below, went into effect on December 14.

4 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Why would you do that? by ThunderBird89 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why would you publicly defame current or former employers? Not only is it rude, it's not graceful nor professional in any way to burn bridges on exit.

    --
    Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
    1. Re: Why would you do that? by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 2, Interesting

      > Abusive employers are the unprofessional ones.

      I agree with you that they are a problem, and a dangerous one. Exposing them can be a public service. The idea that moral or ethical behavior is "unprofessional" is a confusing one. There is a great deal of behavior in the workplace that is very "professional" in the sense of lowering expenses or improving profit, benefiting that "profit" root word in "professional", but are nonetheless unethical or illegal. This includes refusal to hire the disabled, refusal to hire young women who many become pregnant, hiring hundreds of 36-hour workweek part-time employees to avoid providing full-time benefits, firing employees just before retirement to avoid pensions, etc.

      If I may, I'd like to encourage separation of the idea of "ethical" from "professional". I'm afraid it's been a common theory among my younger, libertarian leaning acquaintances that the "silent hand" of market forces will correct moral or ethical issues automatically. I've had some difficulty walking them through examples of market forces _encouraging_ abuse. The idea that abuse is built into the fabric of certain markets has been difficult to convey.

  2. Unions CAN work by Bruce66423 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They work best when they enable the outcome that is best for the business in the circumstances. Thus achieving pay rises for employees who would otherwise migrate to other companies is good, ensuring information gets from the shop floor to senior management without being spun by middle managers is good, stopping bullying and harrassment is good, and helping members through short term crises so they don't leave the company for no good reason is good.

    Yes, as with any institution they can become captured by people with a far more unhelpful agenda. I write as a former union rep recognised by my employer as such. I helped achieve some of the above, and saw how the wider union achieved most of them. Yet I came from a background that was heavily anti-union as having been victims of the union abuse of power in the UK during the 1970s.

  3. Re:Only double-good speak allowed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Then why are positive reviews still allowed?

    It seems there's a trend in general to get rid of negative reviews: Yelp allowing you remove them, Google banning them, Amazon purging them, etc. Negative reviews hinder profits so they've got to go.