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SiteJabber/GGL Projects, Inc/Jeremy Gin May Be Selling Your Personal Information

Sitejabber is likely selling your personal informatikon as its publicized philosophy to collecting formation is quite different from the policy reflected in its fine print. 

One the tips for Evaluating Businesses web page Sitejabber says the following about the ethics of collecting data other than a person's name and e-mail address:

PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Be aware that your personal information is valuable. Before you give out your name, credit card number or contact information, be sure that the website will not abuse it. For example, when you sign up for SiteJabber, we try to make it clear that we will not share your information or send you unwanted emails. Also, SiteJabber only asks for your name and email to identify your reviews and does not ask for other information such as your birthday or gender because those pieces of information are not necessary. Other trustworthy websites should do the same - they should explicitly state that they will not share your personal information without your permission and they should never ask you for irrelevant information. (emphasis mine)

So they're esesentially making the broad statement that collecting personal information is wrong even though many websites ask people to state their birthday to ensure that under-age folks aren't seeing material they shouldn't be seeing without their parent's permission.

But what's really interesting is the fine print in Sitejabber's Privacy Policy

The SiteJabber Privacy Policy

SiteJabber may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the SiteJabber service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience.

By using SiteJabber, you consent to have your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States.

 So one page they say it's wrong to make sure someone is over 18 and on another they reserve the right to collect information about people from highly-credible (not) sources like blogs and instant messaging services. 

The following line is really vague and scary:

By using SiteJabber, you consent to have your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States.

Transferred to whom and for what purpose? Is my private info given to people who want to buy personal information about folks using Sitejabber? Is that why I've been getting so much spam lately?

Scary User and/or Undercover Employee

There is a user named "Mai" who seems to be spend 12 hours a day/ 7 days a week posting on Sitejabber. This person maintains that he/she is a volunteer yet I suspect that he/she is actually a paid employee of Sitejabber as few people can afford to spend 12 hours a day on a review site and this person acts like he/she is getting paid by the hour because he/she feels compelled to generate reviews that aren't substantiated by facts, are virtually unreadable, and pertain to obscure sites that likely get 5 visitors a day that no one would trust because they're so obviously sketchy-looking.

"Mai" has special access to the admin team and is exempted from Sitejabber's supposed community guidelines. Despite many allegations that this person/possible employee sent inappropriate correspondence, which was forwarded to me, to female members of Sitejabber, this individual is allowed to act like a quasi-admin person. 

I recommend avoiding him/her. 

Yes, the owners of Sitejabber.com, that is really a corporte entity called GGL Projects, Inc. based in California, have some explaining to do about their less-than-ethical conduct regarding many issues and fact that the product they received a $500,000 National Science Foundation grant to create bears no resemblance to the one they claimed they were creating when they applied for this grant, in my opinion.

Right now, Sitejabber appears to be an unmoderated (they claim it's moderated but posts are automatically approved and their support team doesn't respond to messages unless you threaten to sue them, in my experience) bulletin board that's primarily a repository for spam, shill reviews, and online harrassment, in my view.

Here is what they said they'd create according to the NSF website.

http://www.nsf.gov/eng/iip/sbir/2012_phaseII_conf_book.pdf

They said they were creating something techie. There's nothing technologically-impressive about the Sitejabber bulletin board. The thing is so primitive it can't even kick out spam put on its non searchable forum and they're talking about taking the innovative (not at all) step of adding an "up"buttom" so people can scroll to the top of the page with one click instead of manually scrolling up. The average 16-year-old could create a more sophisticated and user-friendly site with a lot less than $500,000.

Nor do they have a great community of reviewers that they have vetted for their honesty, in any way, to ensure that shill reviewing doesn't occur. Their system for moving people up to higher levels, for trust purposes, doesn't even work consistently from a tech perspective/is not even clearly defined on a theoretical level.

Plus, the philosophical underpinnings (contained in the link below) of the Sitejabber project virtually guaranteed that the site would have no integrity as Sitejabber's owners don't believe in collecting anything but names (which can be faked) and e-mails (which can be generated indefinitely for free), thereby inherently making it a dream come true for people writing shill reviews or outright spamming sites. If they get banned they can just create 40 more identities for themselves.

http://www.sitejabber.com/consumer-information/tips-for-consumers-on-evaluating-online-businesses-and-websites

For example, one company just got 16 postive reviews in a 24-hour period. Most of them look like  they were written by first times users and only consist of one or two sentences. Obviously these reviews are almost certainly being put up by the company in question not consumers who have used its products. 

http://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.2minjobs.com#25

Allowing shill reviews to be posted at will hurts consumers rather than helps them. So not only did Sitejabber/GGL Projects, Inc./Jeremy Gin (its supposed founder) fail to use the $500,000 National Science Foundation grant they got to create a system for preventing fraud, they appear to have concocted one that arguably facilitates it on some levels.

I believe this occurred, in part, because the grantees put all their energy and money into the easy task of marketing the product rather than doing the hard work of  creating it, because the were just playing around with taxpayer money rather than their own funds.

As such, I've contacted the NSF fraud department that advised me that anyone wishing to acquire more information about Sitejabber/GGL Project's, Inc.'s grant can do so by invoking the Freedom of Information Act pertaining to the National Science Foundation:

http://www.nsf.gov/policies/foia.jsp

I plan to do so.