—
Leads-Locally Anticipates an Increase in Defamation Lawsuits Against Online Reviewers in 2015.Leads-Locally examines new local marketing trends for 2015 with focus on Reputation Management as a potential game changer for online marketing. Leads-Locally believes that trust is the new currency of digital marketing; they want to explore more options for their clientele so that they become authorities that their customers know, like, and trust.
However, there are a growing number of lawsuits in the USA over posts on review websites such as Yelp. With 84million visitors and 33 million reviews written each month, Yelp is a popular place for consumers to look for information. A Harvard study showed that a one star increase in rating on Yelp yields a 5-9% increase in revenue for a company. This suggests that online reviews are important to a company’s reputation and success.
Conversely according to the same Harvard study just one negative review can reduce revenue by as much as 13%. Consumers may directly or indirectly come across these negative reviews either as users of the review service or by stumbling upon it through a Google search. Either way, if one of the first review readers stumbles upon is negative, or to a greater extent harshly negative, this could result in the company’s revenue dropping as much as 70%.
Consequently because of the severe impact on business revenues, businesses are resorting to lawsuits against reviewers to address the damage caused by inaccurate or false statements in their view. These types of lawsuits are becoming increasingly popular and some lawyers are suggesting that those companies who feel threatened are more likely to file these types of suits. Many lawyers are pursuing these cases more rigorously because of how detrimental these sorts of reviews can be to companies.
Reviewers need to take heed: Those who feel a civic duty to post a scathing review, warning others to steer clear of a particular establishment, like a Restaurant or a Hotel, or a Service Provider, such as a Plastic Surgeon or a Cosmetic Dentist, could face a defamation suit.
Eric Goldman, Director of the Santa Clara University School of Laws High Tech Law Institute, says; “a reminder to review authors: There can be significant legal risk to sharing your views online. It’s one thing to bash a business to a friend over coffee. But it’s quite another, legally, to start chatting over the Internet with a few million of your not-yet friends. Companies see these reviews and sometimes get testy”.
Many potential customers use review sites like Yelp to find out about a business reputation before they give them their business, and many assume online reviews as an accurate account of a users experience with the business. A recent conversation with a Yelp account manager confirmed that Yelp does not “Fact Check” reviews. Consequently individuals such as disgruntled employees and the business competition, which did not patronize the business, can post false and fake reviews. By posting fake reviews, these companies may be violate multiple state laws against false advertising and engaged in illegal and deceptive business practices.
In a recent lawsuit, Hadeed (The business owner) believes that the negative reviews weren’t actually written by customers at all, which would make their statements defamatory. Hadeed sued those anonymous reviewers.
Hadeed’s lawyers issued a subpoena to Yelp to learn the identity of the anonymous posters, but Yelp refused to respond to it, claiming anonymous speech was protected by the First Amendment.
The court agreed that Yelp must turn over its data on the reviewers. Here are the relevant aspects of the case from the BBC:
In a statement, the judge said: “Generally, a Yelp review is entitled to First Amendment protection because it is a person’s opinion about a business that they patronized.”
The judge added that users had the right to express themselves anonymously without fear of being identified just because another person disagreed with them.
However, the statement went on to say: “If the reviewer was never a customer of the business, then their view is not an opinion; instead the review is based on a false statement.”
Yelp encourages its users to be honest regarding their experiences but also does not take responsibility for what users say. Users are always cautioned to omit excessive exaggeration and should know not to lie on a review. Although First Amendment rights are important and must be upheld, deliberately sabotaging the viability of a business must also be discouraged. Outright lying is considered defamation and individuals who take part in these types of activities can and will beheld liable. If users of Yelp are honest and truthful, then a company should not be able to sue for defamation simply because it will not match the definition of the action.
Litigation should always be the last resort; leads-locally helps their customers to explore their non-litigation options to resolve contentious negative reviews. Having an average online reputation can also drive paid traffic to the competition as review sites also promotes business vertical competition.
Release ID: 66439