Is your company on the public "shitlist"???  Big brother is watching: Whether you realize it or not, your current employees or anyone who has worked for you, could anonymously rate the ins and outs of working for your company, exact salary, management and more, public on several different websites and online communities, for the world to see.  Even an interview can be rated, which could have a huge effect on your company's reputation.  For freelancers and job hunters, these web sites with uncensored feedback may help get a sneak peak on what it's like to work for such company.

 

Potential candidates, contractors and clients want to know many things about your company before doing business.  Before candidates and contractors do work for you, they may want to know salary, work/life balance, and work ethics.  Clients may want to know what other clients think of them but also, the what your workers think of you, which can effect sales.  They know that chances are, the company won't expose anything negative, because they want people to work for them and customers to buy from them, so these websites are valuable source to finding insight.  An extreme example is any sweatshop.  If it is exposed that they do what is "slave labor," customers against such treatment will refuse to buy products from the company and the company may go out of business.  (There was actually a huge movement on this at my university).  

MyDanWei.com  Allows users to search and rate organization, people's character by organization, and see actual start salary for specific positions.

Jobvent.com  Allows users to search and rate different aspects of a job at a company.  Pay, work/life balance, Respect, Career Potential/Growth, Benefits, Location, Job Security, Co-worker Competence, and Work Environment.

Glassdoor.com  A give to get community.  Give a interview review (ratings and questions asked), salary information, or job review to get 2 years access of the corresponding information  (e.g. give salary info to get access to salary info).  Multiple submissions does not accumulate the years access.

Those 3 have significant amount of information, but there are several more out there that exists.  Note that some of these sites mention "start" salary and not necessarily what they are currently making.  Some companies have a policy that require employees to not disclose their salary information, but that doesn't stop these people from anonymously submitting (and it doesn't stop employees from whispering to each other either).  This allows potential candidates and current employees to get an idea of the fairness of compensation from the company and company culture, before deciding to pursue it.  This allows potential partners to decide whether or not they want to partner up.  

I think this open sharing community is a good thing because it makes companies think twice about what is fair.  If everyone was compensated and treated fairly then companies have no worries (or feel the need to keep things a secret) about such exposure of salary, company culture and reputation.  Of course, if your company has been around for awhile, there's always a chance there's going to be a few disgruntled clients or employees, but that shouldn't be of any concern if you know your company is overall a great place to do business with.