Blind (app) explained

Industry:Professional Networking
Owner:Teamblind, Inc.
Location:San Francisco, California, U.S.

Blind is an app that provides an anonymous forum and community for verified employees to discuss issues. Users on Blind are grouped by topics, company and their broader industry. The app verifies that the registered users actually work in the company through their work email and claims to keep user identities untraceable. However this claim remains disputable[1] [2] on the basis of Blind being closed source and with ties to South Korea, a country not subject to GDPR laws and which additionally enacts controversial defamation laws which include defamation by factual information under article 307(1).

Blind was founded in 2013 by Sunguk Moon and Kyum Kim. In 2014, it initially launched in South Korea,[3] [4] followed by the U.S. in 2015. The company is based in San Francisco, California.[5]

The app has been in the news in multiple cases, noticeably when its anonymous surveys reveal the frank opinions of employees across industries. However, it is also used for more discussions about everyday topics such as salaries.[6]

According to its app pages on the iOS App Store and Google Play, it has registered employees from over 83,000 companies.[7] According to Forbes,[8] the app is being used worldwide and is influencing corporate decisions by giving executives information about employees' concerns.[9]

Employees from various companies have provided their input on situations at their workplace through the app's surveys and chats, including the Korean Air VP rage 7 sacking incident,[10] [11] Uber sexual harassment claims,[12] [13] Google memo,[14] and Amazon employment conditions and problems.[15]

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Web site: FAQ . Blind .
  2. US . 9439072B2 . patent . System and method for authentication . 2016-09-06 . Moon, Seong Uk . Jeong, Yeong Jun . Teamblind Inc.
  3. Web site: Ashley O'Brien . Sara . February 12, 2018 . 'Blind' App Lets Workers Talk About Their Companies Anonymously . CBS News.
  4. Web site: Wong . Queenie . January 25, 2018 . Meet the CEO behind Blind, an anonymous chat app that has tech workers talking . Bay Area News Group.
  5. Web site: Hyun-su . Yim . October 11, 2022 . Blind: App that has everyone in the workplace talking . The Korea Herald.
  6. News: Perry . Tekla S. . Tech Workplace Gossip App Blind Opens to the Masses . IEEE Spectrum . 27 July 2017 .
  7. Web site: Your Anonymous Workplace Community - Blind. App Store. Apple Inc.. 27 October 2017.
  8. Web site: How Businesses Are Using Anonymous Blind App To Change Work Culture. Rosa. Trieu. 2 June 2016. Forbes. 27 October 2017.
  9. News: Kwaak . Jeyup S. . Employees Vent Via 'Blind,' an Anonymous App . WSJ . 18 May 2015 .
  10. News: Loizos . Connie . Talk With Your Colleagues Anonymously, With Blind . TechCrunch . 30 October 2015 .
  11. News: Flynn . Kerry . Blind: The hot app where all the best Silicon Valley gossip is read right now . Mashable . 1 March 2017 .
  12. News: Bort . Julie . Blind, the anonymous chat app once banned by Uber, is expanding . Business Insider . 16 May 2017 . subscription .
  13. News: Young-won . Kim . Blind: The anonymous app that serves as Silicon Valley's gossip outlet . The Investor . 9 June 2017 .
  14. News: Bort . Julie . Over half of Google employees polled say the web giant shouldn't have fired the engineer behind the controversial memo . Business Insider . 9 August 2017 . subscription .
  15. News: Kim . Eugene . Hundreds of Amazon employees used an anonymous app to vent about how the recent suicide attempt was handled . Business Insider . 11 December 2016 .

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