Glassdoor

Is Glassdoor safe?

Glassdoor is still a usable place to read and write honest reviews of employers, but it is no longer the near-anonymous site many people joined. Reviews carry no names, and Glassdoor has a long record of defending reviewers in court. Since 2023, though, it has required real names on profiles. Since 2025 it has needed an Indeed account, and since July 2026 it has been legally part of Indeed, Inc. We score it 55/100, a little below Indeed (57) and above LinkedIn (48).

What changed with real names

In 2021 Glassdoor bought Fishbowl, a professional network that verifies who its users are, and in July 2023 it folded Fishbowl into Glassdoor. Every Glassdoor user got a Fishbowl account, and Glassdoor's terms changed to require verified identities.

The effect became public in March 2024. A Glassdoor user called Monica told Ars Technica that after she emailed support to remove information, staff took the real name from her email and added it to her profile, over her objections. A manager wrote that her name "has to be placed on your profile and it cannot be reverted". Closing the account did not remove it; only a data erasure request did. Another user found an employer and a city he had never entered. Glassdoor's terms say it "may update your Profile with information we obtain from third parties", and staff check public sources.

Glassdoor's answer was that "user reviews on Glassdoor have always and will always be anonymous", and that names are not shown to anyone. That is true of what employers see. But the Electronic Frontier Foundation pointed out that names stored next to reviews can be exposed by a breach, a bug or a subpoena.

Glassdoor is now Indeed

In July 2025 a memo from the chief executive of Recruit Holdings, the Japanese company that owns both sites, reported by Bloomberg, announced about 1,300 job cuts in its HR technology unit and the move of Glassdoor's operations into Indeed. New users have had to sign in with an Indeed account since November 2025. Existing users had until 20 April 2026 to link one or lose full access. Glassdoor merged into Indeed, Inc. on 1 July 2026, and now runs under Indeed's privacy policy.

That policy names Indeed, Inc. as the data controller. It says data is shared with Indeed services and affiliates, that connected profiles go to both in full, and that personal data is used to train AI models. Under US state laws it treats profile information, job interests, messaging activity and site activity as "sold" or shared for targeted advertising, with Google Analytics and ad exchanges among the partners. Apple's label has no tracking section, so the label understates the policy. You can opt out of targeted ads by form or by calling 800-616-6535.

Glassdoor also asks for optional demographic data, such as ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability and religion. The policy classes these as sensitive. Leaving them blank is the safer choice.

Can an employer unmask you?

Employers who dislike a review sometimes go to court to learn who wrote it. Glassdoor says it opposes such requests and that courts "have almost always ruled" for it and its users; the EFF, which often represents reviewers, called Glassdoor "second to none" on this. Not every case ends well. The crypto exchange Kraken subpoenaed Glassdoor in 2019 over reviews by former staff, and the dispute ended in a settlement. Because Glassdoor now holds names, a lost case can reveal more than an email address.

How to review safely on Glassdoor

1. Write from a personal email, never your work address, and do not link a work profile.
2. Leave out dates, team names, projects and quotes that only a few people would know.
3. Post anonymously rather than with your job title if your team is small.
4. Skip the optional demographic questions.
5. Treat recruiters who contact you through job listings as you would on Indeed: never pay to get a job.
6. To leave, file a data deletion request rather than only closing the account.

How we scored it

Regulatory record (88) is the strongest factor, with no fine or order found. Security (63) reflects a clean breach record and a paid bug bounty, held back by the risk of names stored next to reviews. Scams and harmful content (55) weighs Glassdoor's court record against subpoena risk and job scams. Privacy (40) is the weakest because of sale and sharing under state law, AI training, the Indeed link and the real-name rule.