Updated at 3 p.m. Pacific

Glassdoor Inc., the online job-review site, must comply with a federal grand jury subpoena that seeks identifying information about anonymous users of the website, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday in rejecting the company's privacy claims.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld an Arizona trial judge who had denied Glassdoor's effort to quash the grand jury subpoena. The government is seeking information about eight users who posted anonymous reviews about a federal health care contractor under investigation for fraud.

San Francisco-based Glassdoor, represented by a team from Perkins Coie, argued that complying with the subpoena would violate its users' First Amendment rights to anonymous free speech and to associate privately with a group, a concept known as “associational privacy.”

Writing for the panel, Judge Richard Tallman described Glassdoor's associational privacy argument as “tenuous.” U.S. Supreme Court precedent “contemplates groups of people who have associated to advance shared views or 'join in a common endeavor,'” Tallman wrote, “not people who happen to use a common platform to anonymously express their individual views.”

“Given the nature of Glassdoor.com, it is difficult to see its users as an expressive association like the Jaycees, the Boy Scouts, or the NAACP. Glassdoor's users are necessarily strangers to each other, because they are anonymous,” Tallman said. “Users do not so much 'discuss' employment conditions as independently post their individual views.”

Perkins Coie partner Eric Miller, chairman of the firm's appellate practice, declined to comment.

Glassdoor said in a statement the company was disappointed by the court's decision. The statement said in part: “We argued that the lower court applied the wrong standard in placing the interests of government ahead of Americans' protected free speech rights under the First Amendment. We had hoped to persuade the Ninth Circuit Court to require a higher standard for these requests.”

The panel also sustained a contempt order subjecting Glassdoor to a $5,000 sanction for each day it did not turn over the requested information to the government. The district judge stayed enforcement of the monetary sanctions pending the outcome of Glassdoor's appeal to the Ninth Circuit.

Bradley Serwin, Glassdoor general counsel

Glassdoor general counsel Brad Serwin in June told The National Law Journal that the dispute tested the balance between the online speech and the government's power to collect information in a criminal investigation.

“We want to have the Ninth Circuit reaffirm that the government has to show that it has a compelling interest in the information it seeks and that information has a sufficient connection to the government's investigation,” Serwin said then. “Without this reaffirming this standard, the government could potentially demand user information without considering the user's First Amendment rights.”

Serwin said the company actively protects users' “right to speak anonymously about their workplace and company leadership. It's very unusual for the government to ask for identification of our users.”

Regardless of how the court ruled, Serwin said then, “Glassdoor will continue to fight for our users' rights. A loss could have some chilling effect, but as long as we continue to fight each and every case, we will continue to support a vibrant user community.”

Cheryl Miller contributed reporting from Sacramento.

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