The homegrown company took online review platform Glassdoor to a California court in its effort to find out who was behind a recent spate of scathing reviews.
Zuru told the court the reviews posted on its site were defamatory, and it planned to sue. But, to do so, it needed to know who they were.
Glassdoor had previously refused and told the court it wanted to safeguard anonymous speech on its website.
The court ruled in favour of Zuru because, under New Zealand law, the company had an argument to at least plead its case for defamation.
Judge Alex Tse wrote: "Putting aside whether Zuru will be able to prove these four elements at trial, it is clear that the company can plausibly plead them."
The judge added reviewers' rights to anonymity "may give way to Zuru's need to discover their identity in order to pursue its claim".
In a statement, Glassdoor said it was deeply disappointed by the court's decision.
"Contrary to Zuru's contentions, the unflattering workplace experience reviews describing working at Zuru were authored by multiple, actual former Zuru employees.
"We will continue to fight to protect our users' anonymous free speech rights."
In a statement, Zuru said it tried to work with Glassdoor directly to resolve the issue, but it was not until it took legal action that the reviews it describes as fake were removed.
"It's important that reviews are honest and regulated. For legitimacy, we asked Glassdoor to uphold their own standards around fraudulent activity and won the case."
Auckland University law lecturer Nikki Chamberlain said the court had clearly ceded that there was a legitimate interest in protecting reputation - one that trumped the right to privacy.
"A lot of New Zealanders would be surprised because there might be a misconception that freedom of speech is this blanket overall protection."
But, as this case has highlighted, there were limitations to that right, she said.
"The practical implications of this is that people in New Zealand need to be very careful in what they post online."
The decision paved the way for the company, which has an annual turnover of around $1 billion, to sue the anonymous reviewers.
However, Zuru was yet to confirm whether it would go through with these plans.
The company was started in Waikato in 2004 by siblings Nick, Matt and Anna Mowbray. It has since grown to have offices in 26 countries.
Auckland University professor in marketing Bodo Lang said the case showed the delicate balance between protecting individuals' rights to privacy, but also a company's reputation.
"Brands take many, many years to develop and to build equity, and positive associations so that people like them. So, any loss in that equity is always a little bit painful."
He said Zuru's decision to take its case to court could also damage its brand in the short-term.
"But if they believe these reviews are misleading and defamatory in nature then it's their right to request these details."
But workers' unions were concerned about what this meant for employees.
FIRST Union assistant general secretary Louisa Jones said: "It creates a climate of fear so that workers feel like they can't expose what's happened to them at work, which is not OK."
She said more needed to be done to address the power imbalance between employers and their staff.
"If anything we need more protection for workers to be able to voice their concerns about where things are going wrong in the workplace."
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