Monster.com to operate CDC service 9/27/01 In addition to having a new home this
year, the Career Development Center has a new online registration system
hosted by the controversial Monster.com. The new location, in the Bakewell Building
at 355 Galvez Street, is due to the fire that damaged the CDC’s old
building last May; the new registration system is the resuilt of Monster.com’s
acquisition of the center’s previous vendor, JobTrak.com. As a result of the May 25 two-alarm
fire, the CDC relocated this summer to a smaller space in the Bakewell
Building. “We still have our reference file system
for graduate school [and] job employment,” said CDC Director Lance Choy.
“We lost all our resources, but we’ve completely restored our stockpile
of books.” Choy said that because of the lack
of space at the Bakewell Building, workshops that the center holds will
be at different locations like the Alumni Association Building and Tressider
Union. But, Choy said, most Cardinal Recruiting
interviews will continue to be held at the CDC. Report
raises concerns about Monster.com The new registration system is called
MonsterTrak; its parent company, Monster.com, is a major player in the
market for connecting employers with job-seekers. The Cardinal Recruiting program, which
provides students access to on-campus interviews by companies, is also
run through MonsterTrak. Choy said that the transition from
JobTrak.com to MonsterTrak should be easy. “Monster.com has left the [JobTrak.com]
system intact, [so] we have contracted out to MonsterTrak to do our
online job system,” he said. However, on Sept. 5, a 24-page report
put out by The Privacy Foundation, an industry watchdog group, said
that job seekers who use Monster.com’s family of Web sites “face considerable
threats to their privacy.” The report accused Monster.com of discussing
the sale of resume data to marketers, keeping resume data in its files
even when the user has deleted it on the system and putting resumes
submitted to companies that Monster.com does business with onto Monster.com
Web sites. It also said that Monster.com has provided
business partner AOL Time Warner with specific data on job-seekers,
including unique id number identifying a job-seeker with his profile
details. The foundation also said Monster.com
asks job-seekers to disclose gender and ethnic information without benefit
of an appropriate privacy policy on MonsterTrak. For its part, Monster.com has denied
most of the allegations and has issued a brief point-by-point refutation
of the reports main accusations. “Monster.com does not sell, has never sold, and
will never sell personal data to marketers without permission from job
seekers,” the company said. Pam Dixon, who has written several
books on online job searching, did the research for and wrote the report.
“It took a year to do that research,”
Dixon said. “There are some very serious concerns about [Monster.com]’s
privacy [practices].” Dixon said that while she’s been encouraged
by the response of other online job Web sites and people who use them,
she’s been disappointed with Monster.com’s reaction so far. She said
that other than adding more detailed privacy notices to its Web sites,
Monster.com has not done much to alleviate the concerns in the report.
Regarding MonsterTrak specifically,
Dixon said, “If I could wave a magic wand and change one thing about
MonsterTrak, I would get rid of the gender and ethnicity questions.”
Dixon said that these type of questions
may be a violation of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission standards.
When asked about what Stanford students
should do after reading the report, Dixon said, “Students will have
to decide for themselves; my job is to point out the problem.” CDC
Response Choy said that he had heard about the
Privacy Foundation report, but had not read it in its entirety. “This is an issue that all colleges
are concerned about,” Choy said. “I went and asked [MonsterTrak], and
MonsterTrak assured us that their system adheres to their privacy agreements.” But, Choy added, “It raised a fairly
strong voice of concern from across the community. It’s a concern of
whose [information] is being released. There’s an advisory board [made
up of representatives from colleges] that meets with MonsterTrak, and
they’ve been concerned about that.” Other
changes at the CDC Choy also mentioned a new resource
for Stanford students on the Internet. He said that at the CDC Web site,
there’s a hyperlink to “Profiles of Success,” a feature which will showcase
interviews with Stanford alumni who are doing interesting things, to
demonstrate potential opportunities for Stanford graduates. There will be one new profile each
month. Otherwise, business will continue to
go on as usual at the CDC. With the economic outlook becoming increasingly
grim, CDC officials are preparing for an influx of Stanford students
eagerly seeking jobs. |