Bad Mouth Your Boss or Co-worker? How about your employees?

This seems like such a Bad Idea that I'm surprised that Time even bothered to report on it, and that, too, in as neutral a tone as it did.

Essentially, there is a new website, Unvarnished (which I am NOT going to link to) that encourages you to post "anonymous" reviews of your boss or co-workers. Which boils down to anyone reviewing...well...anyone, since there's no possible way for Unvarnished to verify that the person you claim is your boss actually is. (Or, for that matter, that you are who you claim to be, though you are required to identify yourself with a Facebook account.)

The site claims to be an epinions-like way of submitting information about people you work with:

Unvarnished reviews are community-contributed, business-focused assessments of professional performance.

To help reviewers be honest and candid in their reviews, Unvarnished obscures the identity of review authors. This lets reviewers share their true, nuanced opinions without fear of repercussions.

At the same time, to ensure that reviews are of the highest quality, and maintain a helpful, business-focused approach, Unvarnished provides a suite of tools to allow the community to rate and moderate reviews.

How do I hate this? Let me count the ways.

1. Risks to the reviewer:
   How anonymous is this really? To make a review useful, one would have to add enough detail that it would be pretty easy to identify the reviewer. Not to mention clues offered by writing style. Most people "give themselves away every time they open their mouths" (to quote Henry Higgins), even if they think they are posting anonymously. And what's all this business about linking to Facebook? (Actually, to tell you the truth, my guess is the Facebook bit is mostly so that the Unvarnished people don't need to deal with all the adminstrative hassle of managing accounts, but I digress.)
2. Risks to the reviewee:
   What prevents anyone with a grudge about your work from writing any nonsense about your work? Having an argument with your boss/employee/annoying person in another group about whether it is legal to perform some action? Wouldn't go out with someone at work? Wouldn't work an 80 hour week? Do you wear perfume they don't like (and they never had the guts to tell you in person)?
   While we're at it, what prevents anyone in the world from writing any nonsense about your work? Disgruntled neighbors? Annoying ex-boyfriends? Here's one that I bet you wouldn't think of: extortionists. Apparently there's a bit of a cottage industry in Second Life of virtual mobsters gaming the ratings system of unsuspecting users. And that's just Linden Dollars. Think of the USD value you could extract for professional reputation or psychological despair.
3. Risks to the review reader:
   Given the above: can I believe anything I read on this site?
4. Risks to the organization employing the reviewee:
   a) What confidential information may be divulged in a review?
   b) Do you really want your organization's dirty linen aired in front of customers or other parts of the organization?
   c) What does this do to morale within the organization?

Many comments on the article have noted that this is a law suit waiting to happen.

I am half tempted to sign up for access, just to see how much damage you could really do, if you had it in for someone. But I am also paranoid about these sorts of things, especially the bit about hooking it up to a Facebook account. So maybe not.