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

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.

Comments

Why would you do that?

[ThunderBird89]

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.

Re:Why would you do that?

[magusxxx]

It's also rude to mistreat your employees. Or require them to look the other way where the law is concerned. That's why it's good to have websites like Glassdoor.

And isn't it funny how when an employee has a complaint upon leaving a company its called 'burning their bridges.'

Yet when upper level employees have a complaint upon leaving a company it's called 'managerial differences.'

Re:Why would you do that?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

It's also rude to mistreat your employees. Or require them to look the other way where the law is concerned. That's why it's good to have websites like Glassdoor.

And isn't it funny how when an employee has a complaint upon leaving a company its called 'burning their bridges.'

Yet when upper level employees have a complaint upon leaving a company it's called 'managerial differences.'

I think you will find that mistreatment is part and parcel of being profitable and as such employee mistreatment by companies is highly commendable. It’s only organizing workers to defend against abuse that is neither graceful nor profssional in any way which is why many employers would like nothing more than ban labour organization and collective bargaining by law.

Re:Why would you do that?

[sg_oneill]

Well its not always defamatory, sometimes the former employer are just terrible, and thats why you left.

But sometimes.... We had a recent issue where a very senior employee left to start at another company, all good and fine, and then started spamming reviews of our apps with absolute nonsense, and he knows it would be nonsense because he was on the design team. It was baffling, we thought he left on good terms, but apparently he had something bottled up.

Shame he never told us what was irking him while he was here. We could have sorted it. It wasnt like the guy was shy when he had something he didnt like.

So I get googles position here. It IS a conflict of interest.

Re:Why would you do that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Capitalism is adversarial by nature. The company would benefit the most by destroying all competition, paying their workers next to nothing and selling their stuff at exorbiant prices. The workers would benefit the most by being paid a lot and not having to work. Society benefits by a power balance in these relationships, but nobody maintaining this balance actually want it to be where it is. And competition wastes collossal amounts of resources by making people who could've worked together work to one-up one another instead.
The basis for capitalism is not that it is the theoretically most optimal system. What it does is to try and leverage and/or work around quirks of human psychology in order to do useful work. It does so reasonably well, but it fails to put value on some of the most valuable things in humanity, such as bringing up a child well, helping the helpless, or use natural resources carefully. The tragedy of the commons is one of the many failure modes of capitalism.

Re:Why would you do that?

[Solandri]

Just to give a window into what it's like from the other side, when I was managing a company with 60 employees, we had to fire one of them. He was head of his department and we were pretty sure he was embezzling (his replacement eventually confirmed this when he went through a half year of purchase orders and compared to what was in inventory). About a month later I got a phone call from the company he'd applied for a job at - he had given me as a reference.

I wasn't sure what I was allowed to say so gave the excuse that I was way too busy and could they please call back the next day. We had unlimited phone access to employment lawyers as part of our employment liability insurance, so I called them up and explained the situation. They told me flat out that unless we had rock-solid proof he was embezzling, under no circumstances should I state that as the reason we had let him go. I couldn't mention any of our suspicions or circumstantial evidence either. We couldn't (or shouldn't) mention any negatives in his reference unless we had documentation on file to back it up (like signed formal reprimands - I had always wondered why we had to have 2 other people in the room with the employee when we gave a reprimand, and why the employee was required to sign them).

The next day when they called back I had to water down our experience with him as "he didn't fit well with the company." I stammered and hesitated while saying it, and I think I succeeded in getting the message across that there was a lot more to it than that but I wasn't legally allowed to say it. I understand now why there's an art to double entendres and backhanded compliments when it comes to job references.

So the distinguishing factor isn't low-level vs high-level employee. It's "differences" when it's on the record and the company doesn't have rock-solid proof (i.e. they could be sued for libel or slander). It's "burning bridges" when it's off the record or the company has rock-solid proof. High-level employees just get the "differences" explanation more often because they're better at covering their butts than low-level employees.

Re:Why would you do that?

[DutchSter]

My favorite reference seeking question is "would you hire them back?" When the answer is "no", how it is said does speak volumes.

No need for any more details than that. Although I will say that while many companies do take the tight lipped approach there are also many that will talk your ear off for an hour if you let them.

Re:Why would you do that?

[mjwx]

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.

Usually it's because the employer did not handle your exit in any manner that could be remotely considered graceful or professional.

I left my last employer under such circumstances, I also managed to create enough problems that they ended up giving me 3 months of "gardening leave" in order to avoid a suit. That was one of two unwritten agreements between us, the other would be that they wouldn't give me a negative reference and I wouldn't slag off the company (which was struggling to find staff as it was).

I have nothing kind to say about that company, in fact I consider joining it the biggest mistake of my life, staying there the second biggest. However I'd only tell someone the company and the details in person.

It is a perfectly natural response to want some revenge on someone (or some company) that you feel has wronged you. Even though Google Maps no longer allows it (their house, their rules) there are plenty of options like Glassdoor, various social media, your own website.

Re:Why would you do that?

[argStyopa]

"I can't tell you the reasons he was fired, just that there were about 250,000 of them."

You need to ask?

[thesupraman]

So, just to check here...

Are you saying you think the unwashed masses are graceful and/or professional?
That they have any consideration for future repercussions to their actions?
That they are capable of even remembering that they did this a week later?
You think that acting sensibly would be more important than the 5 minutes of 'fame' they felt they would get from posting some stupid troll-rant the moment they left a job?

Interesting...
Want to buy a bridge?

Gee, this should work out well

[hyades1]

So which would be a better solution, come up with a fake on-line ID and use that to comment on an abusive former employer, or just have a friend do it for you?

Decisions, decisions...

Re:Google Maps reviews

[Krishnoid]

Then there are the absurd reviews, like a hotel where somebody reports that EVERYBODY was rude to her during the entire 2 week stay and there were human feces piled on the bed all the way up to the ceiling and cockroaches crawling everywhere and the food was all spoiled causing diners to vomit over every table at every meal and on and on. I guess they think they will scare away business with this claptrap. Same thing happens on the positive side.

I was at that hotel once! One odd thing is that that all the staff had red skin and horns. A lot of them had some pretty styling goatees and what looked like hooves. I'm guessing it was run by hipsters or furries?

Re:Only double-good speak allowed

[ShanghaiBill]

Another way that google exerts control over the sheep every day and every way.

Perhaps. But a map app really isn't an appropriate forum for bitching from disgruntled ex-employees. Nobody using a map is looking for crap like that.

Re: Thanks Trump

[stealth_finger]

Your post is still there, at the top, for all to see, so shut the fuck up moaning.

Unions CAN work

[Bruce66423]

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.